


midnight

by originella



Series: Dusk Series [2]
Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Cancer Arc, Character Turned Into Vampire, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Mentions of Cancer, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original Slash, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, POV Original Character, POV Original Female Character, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 18:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20980577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originella/pseuds/originella
Summary: Sarah was adopted at age five by Beth and Richard; when she graduates college, a near-fatal car accident results in her transformation, and her adventure begins.Rebecca is the biological daughter of Beth and her stepfather, Andy; adopted at birth, Rebecca spends childhood in isolation, due to having leukemia. When a nomad vampire enters her life and changes her, their worlds meet.





	1. Here & There

I remembered the day that my biological mother had me, she concealed me from the rest of the world like I was some dirty little secret. From the time I entered foster care at only hours old, I didn’t know much of anything. As time went by, however, and I turned three, I knew that I had parents, plus an older sister, but we would never be a family. I was seized by social services when it came to light that my biological father could be abusing my older sister. I was four when my real mother found me—my real mother, my older sister, Beth—living in foster care. She took me in immediately and, on the day she married my real father, my adoption, along with my younger twin brothers, Luke and Frankie, went through.

I was a part of a very large family, the Cullen family; upon my adoption, my name formally became Seraphina Alexandrine Cullen, but I’d always gone by Sarah. I was almost five when the adoption went through, and I accepted it as an early birthday present. Now, I was almost eighteen, and ready and waiting for my senior year to end. I attended Forks High School, just like my parents, and many aunts and uncles before me had.

We lived with my mother’s family, in an addition to the massive house, designed by my grandmother, Esme. My grandfather—Esme’s husband—was the lead doctor at Forks General Hospital, while my aunts and uncles had a few odd jobs here and there. I had three aunts—Bella, now a bonafide child psychologist; Rosalie, now Carlisle’s assistant and co-lead doctor at Forks General Hospital; and Alice, who now had a popular online fashion consulting firm. There were three uncles as well—Edward, Bella’s husband, who was still trying to find something to occupy his time; Emmett, Rosalie’s husband, who was now working as a personal trainer; and Jasper, who spent his days making complex artwork and selling it at lucrative prices.

Life was pretty perfect, although there was one thing I didn’t understand—my boyfriend, Embry, seemed totally committed to me, more so than most people our age. We’d been together for as long as I could remember, and I couldn’t understand his protective nature towards me. I cared for him, of course, but not in the way society—or my family—expected me to. I must confess by the time I reached high school, when we started holding hands and kissing that I did my best to reciprocate, but I couldn’t get those feelings of the fact that I lacked overwhelming love for him out of my mind. I spent many nights crying softly in my bedroom—I swear, other than Luke and Frankie, the rest of my family had crazy good hearing—because I couldn’t love Embry.

Luke and Frankie were at Forks High School with me, and had found girlfriends almost immediately, and they were all so happy, it made my eyes hurt to watch. Their girlfriends were Pauline, a girl obsessed with English history, and Bridgette, a girl who was the lead in every acting production Forks High School put on. All I cared about was getting good grades and getting as far away from Forks, and Embry, as possible. By the time I turned eighteen, I would be all graduated and, hopefully, my hard work would’ve paid off.

Graduation finally came and all I could think about was my first opportunity to run. I’d gotten into several colleges—my parents’ alma mater Oxford University among them—and had decided to attend Yale Law School. I’d realized my dream, at just shy of eighteen years old, to become a lawyer, and crossed my fingers that my family would support me in my dream. Although, at this point, my dream would be to escape Embry’s constant stalking behavior...

I’d had a few friends during high school—Clara Matthews and Jackie Barrows among the closest ones—and when Jackie decided that we should be wild and crazy after graduation happened, I didn’t move to stop her. Thankfully, Embry gave me enough space to get into Clara’s car after the ceremony, and we drove off along the highway; the plan was to get dinner in Port Angeles and then go to a late movie—I know, kind of common-place, but we were getting out of Forks, so it worked.

Even though it was early June, rain came down, hard, and I wondered if it was some kind of bad omen. The clouds seemed to thicken as we went along the highway, and I crossed my fingers that Clara’s tires would hold up. When the rain cleared, Clara put her convertible top down and, since we were the only ones by the road, we threw up our hands every now and then and screamed with joy—them for graduating, me for escaping Embry. I found myself utterly at peace, and I was free, at last.

“I’m moving to the East Coast,” I confided in them.

“For what?” Jackie asked.

“Yale,” I reply. “I got in! I’m going to be a lawyer!”

“Hell yeah!” Clara shouted from behind the wheel. “I’m going to UCLA! I’m going to be a screenwriter!”

“Harvard!” Jackie called out, turning around to look at me, her face shining with pure excitement. “We’ll be neighbors!”

“You going to live in the dorms?” I asked.

Jackie nodded. “Yeah.”

I lean forward slightly. “My grandfather got me a place in Webster—all paid for, right on the water, a total party house! It has five bedrooms or something... Want to come and live with me?” I ask.

Jackie’s eyes widen. “Are you kidding?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m not kidding.”

Jackie squeals, turning around in the passenger seat and throwing her arms around me in a moment of pure joy. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she cries. “This’ll really help my parents a lot with my living expenses...”

I grin at her. “No problem.”

College passed by in a blur. All I cared about was getting my degree and staying away as long as possible—because of Embry. When I turned eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one, I didn’t notice. I made my way through college life quickly and quietly, not dating anyone or going to any parties. Jackie was a good roommate in that she didn’t bother me when I was trying to study, as Clara would have done. We were both done with our degrees in three and a half years as planned and returned to Forks that summer, on schedule. We decided to do the same thing we did upon high school graduation—take in dinner and a movie in Port Angeles. As we drove, Jackie urged me to be in her selfie, which I begrudgingly agreed to.

“Let me in there!” Clara shouts, and let’s go of the steering wheel as the rain kicks up again, and we slide headlong into a tree off the road.

“Clara!” I scream. “Road!”

The car immediately bursts into flames; Clara and Jackie are dead on impact; I feel my scream leaving my body as I lower my eyes. The tree has gone through the car and has impaled me, and I am pinned against the seat. Blood is everywhere, and I raise my eyes upwards, to the sky, and find myself drifting above my body. The tremors I felt as soon as the car hit slow down, and I find myself looking down at the accident. I float up, over the trees, and back towards Forks, where I fly over my house and see my whole family—well, my parents, grandfather, and a few others—stream out of the house. They get into their cars and seem to floor it, and they all drive way over the speed limit. I can’t think what’s happening, and suddenly they’re all pulling out onto the highway, driving like there’s no tomorrow. I slowly drift along, following them, and then I suddenly zoom back into my own body as they all arrive at the scene.

“Baby!” my mother shouts, and she’s over at the car in an instant. She cradles my face, her golden eyes full of sadness and fear, her raven locks cascading down around her face. She turns to my grandfather then, shouting, “Carlisle!” as he stampedes to my other side to get a good look at me.

“She’s impaled pretty good,” Carlisle says, reaching down and prying open my eyes just a little bit further, shining a light into them. “Sarah? Sarah? Can you hear me?”

“C...Carlisle,” I barely manage to get out; I barely heard myself, but my grandfather seemed to hear me perfectly well.

“Beth, you have a decision to make,” Carlisle says quickly, raising his eyes to my mother, his voice firm. “If I take the tree limb out now, she’ll likely bleed out before I can get her to the hospital or the house...”

“What’s the alternative?!” my mother sputters, choking back sobs.

“Honey,” my father says, putting an arm around my mother. “It’s okay...”

“_Don’t_ tell me ‘it’s okay’!” my mother shouts, slamming her fist into the side of the car. “That’s my little girl down there!” She grips the side of the car, locking eyes with Carlisle. “If you were to change her...”

“Babe...” My father tries again.

Carlisle sighs. “Is that what you want for her?”

My mother nods. “I want her around forever—she would’ve gotten this choice eventually, Carlisle, you know that...”

My grandfather nods. “I know...” He sighs, looking up at her. “I’m right here, but...”

“What?” my mother asks.

“How would you feel about changing her? I know it’s a scary thought, but Beth, I know you have it in you...”

My mother looks down at me then, and I can see through her eyes that she is absorbing my own pain and suffering. She lifts my arm that is closest to her, and sighs, an unnecessary move on her part—she never seemed to breathe—and lifts my arm towards her lips. “I love you, so, so much, baby,” she whispers, dipping her head towards my flesh.

I find I have enough strength to let out a scream as she bares her teeth and bites roughly into my arm. I watch as her eyes widen for a brief moment before letting me go, using her tongue to seal the wound she made shut. She then dashes to the other side of the car, doing the same thing to my other arm, and I let out another scream. Leaning down, she pushes my hair back, exposing my neck, and gives me a third and final bite upon it. I feel something tearing away from me then as my father and Carlisle pull the tree limb out from inside of me, and my mother lifts me effortlessly and carries me to the car. We all climb in, and I see that, for the first time, Rosalie, Bella, Edward, and Emmett are there, too.

Carlisle drives like a madman, and soon we’ve left the highway entirely and zip through town before arriving at the house. I’m lifted from the back seat of the car and up the pathway, up into the house. I can feel my vision fading as we pass my grandmother, Esme, along with Alice and Jasper in the living room. I remember then that Luke and Frankie, now upperclassmen as juniors, were at some lame party that evening, and would not be around to see this.

I am put down on Carlisle’s exam table, whereupon I am laid out much like a corpse would be. Carlisle manages to cut off the dress I’d been wearing, looking away when my mother takes off my bra and underwear, and my father drapes a sheet over me. Carlisle then cleans my wounds ever so slightly, before telling my parents that the time to wait has arrived. I watch as he gives me an injection, and my eyelids grow heavy, and it is then that complete blackness surrounds me.

. . .

My next recollection is of flames consuming me, just as Clara and Jackie were consumed. I am on fire; I feel as if I’ve been thrown on a pile of wood in some medieval world, and that I am being punished for my sins. I remember lying to Embry about being in love with him, and I automatically believe that this is my punishment. I’ve been thrown onto a bed of flames, and this is to be my life from now on.

I feel myself wanting to scream in pain, but it is almost as if I have been permanently silenced by some unknown source. I find I cannot move any of my limbs, and that blackness wants to take me once again. However, it does not, and I’m lost in this void, somewhere between lightness and darkness, forever trapped.

_I’m ready_, I think to myself. _I’m ready to die_...

. . .

“Carlisle?”

“Beth. Richard take you out for a hunt?”

“Yes. He thought I’d need it in light of... This.”

“I understand. Don’t worry. Progression is right on schedule.”

“Is it?” my mother asks. “Then why do I feel so selfish?”

“Beth?”

She sighs. “I feel selfish...”

“Don’t feel that way, Beth...”

“How am I supposed to feel?” she asks, her voice breaking. “Ever since I’ve become one of you, Rosalie has respected my decision but this... A life, my daughter’s life, cut tragically short by a freak accident... What are the police going to do when they assess the scene, Carlisle? Charlie can only cover everything up for so long...”

“Jasper is manipulating everything as we speak,” Carlisle replies, easily. “Don’t worry—I know that it was only planned at the last minute. We’ll say that Sarah had something to do here and that Clara and Jackie dropped her off.”

“I feel so guilty,” my mother whispers. “Sarah should’ve been able to decide for herself. I mean, what if this isn’t what she would have wanted? And then there’s her relationship with Embry to consider... I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t feel guilty—we’ve given her an opportunity to live a long, full life, but...”

“Is Rosalie’s disapproval all you’re worried about?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” my mother says. “I just love Sarah so much... I think when push came to shove, I couldn’t bear to lose her...”

“Well, now you won’t,” Carlisle replies. “She’s been out for two days—could be any time now, you know. She can probably hear us...”

“Don’t. I want her to rest. Let her rest.”

“Of course, Beth.”

. . .

Once Carlisle leaves the room later that afternoon, the sun streaming in through the massive windows, do I finally permit myself to open my eyes. I can see from the time that it is three in the afternoon, so, judging by Carlisle’s timeline, it had been a little bit less than two days. I soundlessly get into a sitting position, and hop off the exam table, making my way over to the attached bathroom, running a hand through my dark brown hair. My plan was to splash some water on my face, but I didn’t get that far.

The moment I looked at myself in the mirror, I found I was almost a mirror image of my mother, and that shocked me, considering that, biologically speaking, we were merely half-sisters. I am so shocked at this transformation—perfect nose, plumper lips, brighter eyes—that I lose it completely. My once-violet eyes are now a horrid red color, like Clara and Jackie’s blood splattered around after the car accident. My skin is a perfect alabaster, and my body type is an hourglass, perfect... And I am beautiful, and I find myself utterly shocked at this notion.

I let out a scream at what has happened to me and, instantly, the mirror shatters, but does not go flying off the wall. I let out another, smaller scream at that, and then the door crashes open and my uncle, Jasper comes into the room. He takes one look at the mirror and runs towards me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Sarah, you’re fine,” he assures me, and, instantly, I feel fine.

“Thank you,” I reply, and he looks shocked that I am so receptive to him. “I will be fine, I...” I shake my head. “What just happened?” I ask, pointing to the mirror.

“Carlisle.” Jasper’s word is quickly answered and my grandfather enters the room and looks a bit shocked at the mirror.

“Well. It was a cheap thing, anyway. Never really liked it...” His eyes go to me, looking at my hand. “Fist?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Voice,” I reply, and notice that, for the first time, my voice resembles a chorus of church bells.

Carlisle raises his blond eyebrows. “I have not met someone who has a ballistic scream in quite some time,” he remarks almost plaintively.

“She’s gifted,” Jasper replies, wonderingly.

I feel my eyebrows knitting together then, and quickly wonder if I could possibly have more than one “gift”. I recalled, a moment ago, that Jasper had touched me, and thus had emitted a calm sense of reality, and quickly wondered if I did the same thing, perhaps a similar result would take hold. Stepping forward, I placed my hand on Jasper’s shoulder and gasped a little. “A soldier,” I whisper.

Jasper’s eyes turn and lock onto mine. “What?”

“You were a solider for the confederate army,” I reply, not knowing how on earth I’d come by this information. “You were transformed by a woman named Maria, the leader of the Mexican Coven. You saved two newborns named Peter and Charlotte—well, you let them escape...”

Jasper turned to Carlisle. “What?” he whispered, shocked.

“Sarah possesses Psychometry,” Carlisle replies. “By using the sense of touch, she can read anyone’s past or future...”

“I see nothing in the future,” I reply, regretfully. “Just past...” I shrug. “Oh, well. I guess I can always find out if people are lying to be about their pasts...”

Carlisle sighs. “Aro will be so jealous,” he replies, “and think of you as a prize...”

There is a bang from below then and I hear my mother’s voice, and Rosalie’s, telling my mother that I’ve woken up. She lets out a small shout and runs up the stairs, and I sense my father behind her. I feel myself become more at ease as they enter the room, but I also find that I cannot bring myself to look at them.

“Sweetheart?” My mother’s comforting word of endearment causes me to turn, and she gasps. “Oh, my darling,” she says, zooming over to me and throwing her arms around me. “I am so happy that you’re all right!”

“You gave us quite a scare there, young lady,” my father says, smiling. “Now we have you back and you’re safe.”

I smile at them, and pull back, holding onto my mother’s hand. “Unspeakable,” I whisper then, shuddering, as I’ve now seen the extent of what my biological father did to her. “I am so pleased to see you’re all right.”

My mother looks utterly shocked and looks at Carlisle. “What?” she asks. “What is Sarah talking about?”

“One touch and she knows your past,” Jasper replies.

“Like Aro,” my mother says, dropping my hands for a moment in a moment of fear, her eyebrows knitting together.

“Who’s Aro?” I ask.

My mother sighs. “Aro is the head of the Volturi, a royal coven,” she explains. “They live in Italy and collect our kind who may be of use to him...”

I reach out and touch my mother’s hand again. “He also created you,” I reply. “You seem to have a complicated relationship with...that vampire,” I say softly.

My father visibly stiffened. “Your mother has her reasons,” he replies.

I nod. “Of course, Father,” I say, reaching towards him. “Carlisle created you...”

“Sarah...” My father began.

Carlisle held up his hand. “Let her speak, Richard.”

“You were dying in North Carolina, so beloved Carlisle saved your life during the Great Depression. Then, you decided to save Aunt Katherine as well, and changed her, before becoming nomads for some time before finding Mother...”

My father’s eyes dart to my mother’s. “There is no way she could know that...”

“She’s very powerful,” Jasper puts in. “Now, before she meets everyone, you must take her into the woods.”

“Into the woods...?” I ask, shaking my head. “I don’t understand.”

Carlisle steps forward. “Sarah, what are you used to vampires eating?”

“Humans,” I reply, almost as if it’s not even a question. “Their blood...”

He nods. “Yes, most of us _do_ suck human blood, but not us. Your Denali cousins are the same way—we drink the blood of animals.”

I raise my eyebrows. “So, we’re like hippies now or something?” I ask, and hear the tell-tale laugh of my uncle, Emmett, from downstairs.

Carlisle smiles. “No. But we do call ourselves vegetarians.”

I nod. “I see.” I shrug my shoulders. “How will I know if I need a hunt?”

“Your throat will burn,” Jasper tells me. “Feeling anything?”

I shake my head. “No... Well, faintly, but I could ignore it...” I roll back onto the balls of my feet and don’t fall over. “Seems very strange behavior... I mean, aren’t new vampires like new babies? We need food all the time?”

Carlisle inspects me; he finds that my skin is strong, my eyes are the correct shade, and—once I’m outside—I’m able to run faster than anyone in the house and I snap a tree in half without being asked. I apologize to Esme when I realized it was a prized fruit tree, and swear to plant a new one. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” my grandfather remarks. “Even with Bella and your mother, the moment they wanted to hunt, they hunted...”

“Something’s wrong with her, Carlisle,” Emmett says.

“Careful, Emmett,” my uncle, Edward, says. “Remember what Beth did to you on her first day out. I’d be wary if I were you.”

I shoot up to Emmett’s side then and touch his shoulder. “Oh,” I say, letting out a laugh that can only be described as delicious. “She threw you into the knothole of that tree,” I say, and promptly point to it.

Emmett’s eyes flash to my mother. “You told her?!” he demands.

My mother shakes her head. “Not guilty,” she replies.

My tallest uncle turns to me then and stares downwards at me; I am the exact same height as my mother and Aunt Bella, so it is quite a drop to which he looks. “How the hell could you possibly know that?” he asks, accusatory. Due to his high-stress job as personal trainer, he can’t be beat—by anyone.

I extend my fingers and touch his arm again. “Mauled by a bear, my, my, my,” I say, giving him a grin. “Playing too rough with the creatures of the forest, there, Uncle Emmett?” I ask him, laughing.

My aunt, Alice, steps forward and looks me over. “Ever since you were adopted into the family, I could see you becoming one of us. When things went down with the Volturi just after your parents got married, however, I couldn’t see your future for days...”

“Why?” I ask, confused.

Alice smiles and extends her arm. “See for yourself.”

I reach forward then, and my mind is flooded with images before I pull my hand back and turn to my mother. “I would’ve only turned into a vampire if I fell in love with one or if you changed me,” I tell her.

“If you fell in love with...?” my father asks, confused. “Sarah, what are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

I sigh. “I suppose you all should know that this so-called ‘imprinting’ thing with Embry didn’t work.”

My aunt Bella, at Edward’s side, shares a glance with her husband before looking at me. “I know that Jacob would’ve imprinted on me if Edward didn’t come back, because then I’d be receptive to his advances but...” She shakes her head. “We later found out that he imprinted on Renesmee because it was her pulling him to me the whole time. Maybe it’s someone you know, pulling him to you, which is why you don’t love him.”

I smile, shrugging. “I mean, it’s whatever. I have eternity now, right?”

“If you don’t piss the Volturi off,” Emmett puts in.

Jasper steps forward then, seemingly assessing me. “She’s in full control, Carlisle...”

“Of course, that might change if a human decides to show up,” Emmett says, and Jasper fixes him with a look.

“You’re not helping the situation, Emmett,” my mother puts in.

“All I’m saying is, the sooner Embry gets here, the better,” he says, cracking his knuckles and looking like he’s going to watch a sports game.

Rosalie puts a hand on his arm. “Emmett, be a little sincere,” she whispers.

I step towards my blonde aunt and place my fingers on her arm. “Oh, no,” I whisper, and shake my head, recoiling instantly.

“What is it?” Rosalie asks.

“Sarah just saw your last night as a human,” Edward tells her.

Rosalie locks eyes with mine, fear inside them. “No more,” she says, and flees into the house, Emmett following her.

I lower my hand, shaking. I don’t know what to think, when suddenly, the scent of wet dog approaching fills my nostrils and I feel sick. Turning, I see Embry standing there, and he looks completely shocked at my altered appearance. “Hey,” I say to him.

His eyes quickly dart to Carlisle. “Please tell me that this was because of an unavoidable accident and that’s the reason behind you breaking the treaty,” he says.

“The treaty wouldn’t be broken, anyway,” Edward says firmly. “Because of Jacob and Renesmee’s marriage, we can’t be harmed.”

Embry steps forward, towards me, and stares at me as if I’ve knifed him in the gut. “Can we go somewhere and talk?” he asks. “Privately?”

I turn to Alice, who nods, and I walk off into the woods with Embry, near Edward and Bella’s cottage. “How can I help you, Embry?” I ask him.

He steps forward a second time. “I came by to know why you stopped texting me, but I see you were...indisposed, as it were,” he says, looking concerned. “You weren’t put up to this or anything, were you?”

“If you’re asking me if I made the conscious choice to be changed, no, Embry. There was no decision-making from me whatsoever. Swear.”

He sighs. “Sorry,” he says, giving me a tight smile. He steps closer to me then and kisses me and I feel like retching.

“Embry, no.” I manage to push him away and retreat from him.

“What’s wrong? You okay?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Embry, this, us...” I sigh. “I really don’t want to hurt you, Embry, but I can’t pretend anymore.”

“Pretend?” he asks, not understanding. “What do you mean?”

“You never imprinted on me,” I tell him.

Embry looks shocked. “But, it was like gravity, and...”

“Embry, _stop_!” I shout at him. “Imprinting works both ways—it didn’t work on me because I don’t love you in that way.”

Embry steps forward then and grabs me by the arms, forcing his tongue in my mouth and halfway down my throat. When he pulls back, he has the nerve to look satisfied with himself. “Well?” he asks, pleased.

I’d seen something when he’d grabbed me, and I hadn’t altogether liked it. “You’ve done that to my mother, right here, too,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

He looks shocked. “What?!”

“That’s right,” I tell him. “I’m gifted.”

Embry steps back. “What the hell?!” he demands.

I narrow my eyes at him. “You are _never_ to touch me again,” I say vehemently at him. “I told you ‘no’ and you didn’t listen. Do you have hearing damage? I think not.”

Embry looks hurt. “But I love...”

“Don’t say it,” I say firmly. “Ever.”

Embry lets out a growl then before running a few feet away, shapeshifting and running off into the forest. His clothes lay scattered around in torn pieces, and I don’t even bother to clean them up. He knew better than to shapeshift with clothes on, yet he insisted upon doing it anyway...

“Jerk,” I mutter.

Embry immediately shapeshifts back upon hearing what I called him; he snatches a spare set of clothes from the knothole of a tree and charges towards me. “What the hell did you call me?!” he demands then.

“I called you a jerk,” I reply, standing my ground.

Embry glares at me. “You have no right.”

“I have every right,” I tell him.

Embry looks like he’s about to grab me then. “No right to...”

But before he can finish, I hold up my hands to potentially hold him at bay. “No!” I scream at him as he comes for me then. Just before Embry touches me, a resounding blast issues forth from my palms and Embry goes flying backward.

He hits the ground, hard, but there is no damage. Fuming now, he charges at me. “You worthless piece of—”

“Stop!” I cry out, and the blast comes out of my palms again and stops him.

Finally, Embry gives up and shape shifts again, so as there are more clothes on the ground before he runs off.

I turn and look towards the woods, knowing that I probably should attempt to hunt. I make a mental note that animals are the only thing on the menu as I dart in between the trees and charge deeper and deeper into the thick trees. I jump over the stream separating Bella and Edward’s cottage from the main Cullen property, and continue through the thicket of trees, until something on the wind catches my attention.

For the first time, my throat burns with desire, and I immediately follow the sensation towards a clearing. Immediately, I spot a black bear, probably skulking around for something to eat himself, and grin to myself—he’s in for a rude awakening. I wait, poised, for him to come closer and when he does, I leap into the air and grab his throat. The blood soon finds its way into my mouth and I find myself easily satisfied when the beast has died at my hands.

Getting to my feet, I walk around the corpse and run back to the house, delighting in my super speed. I get to the stream in almost no time at all and leap over it, sailing over the tops of the trees momentarily before landing among them with the elegance of a dancer. I then complete the rest of the way to the Cullen house, and raise my eyebrows when I see that they—apart from Rosalie and Emmett—are all still outside waiting for my return.

“Good job,” Edward said.

“Mind reader,” I mutter.

“Guilty,” he says.

I roll my shoulders, approaching my mother and father. “Ended things with Embry,” I tell them quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“Because of your mother’s feelings?” my father asked.

I shook my head. “No,” I say, putting my hand on my mother’s arm, “because it was the right thing to do.” I gasp then at what I see—my mother, fourteen-years-old, handing over a baby girl. I withdraw my hand then and walk away from her; it is a deliberate motion, so as she will know that I am hurt. I can hear her excuse herself as I leap up the side of the house effortlessly and open the window, letting myself into my bedroom.

“Sarah.”

Despite my mother’s firm voice just behind me, I deliberately ignore her. I flop down onto my bed, and soon realize that it serves no purpose—I feel no desire to sit down, and everyone knew that vampires didn’t sleep. Nevertheless, I picked up a book I’d been reading and stick my nose into it.

“Sarah.”

Finally, I looked up. “What?” I demanded.

My mother sighs, sitting on the edge of my bed. “What did you see?”

I shake my head. “Never mind.”

“It must’ve upset you, sweetie.”

I shook my head, my eyes back in the book. “Doesn’t matter.”

My mother swept the book from my hands. “Seraphina Alexandrine Cullen, you answer my question right now!” she cried. “You may be immortal now, sweetheart, but I’m still your mother and I will not tolerate insolence.”

I fold my hands in my lap, annoyed. “Fine,” I grumble. “You want the truth?”

“Yes,” my mother says, clearly just as annoyed as I am.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you had a biological daughter?!” I demand.

Her eyes widen briefly before she immediately smooths her features. “Because I was only fifteen when I had her and fourteen when I got pregnant...”

“It was Andy, wasn’t it?” I demand through clenched teeth.

She nods. “Yes.”

“Where is he?” I demand, my nails digging into my palms. “Where is that son of a bitch who put you through hell?!”

She purses her lips. “I suppose I can tell you now...”

“What?”

She sighs. “Carlisle is of the impression that if humans did you wrong while you yourself are still human, you are permitted to kill them,” Mom tells me softly. “So, since Andy abused me, I killed him, and since my mother did nothing, I killed her.”

“And then you took custody of the boys?”

“I killed Andy and my mother and kidnapped the boys,” she replies. “J. Jenks, Uncle Jasper’s lawyer, drew up the documentation immediately afterwards. I was never charged with the murder...”

“How?” I press her.

“Because I had Carlisle, Uncle Jasper, and J. Jenks fake my death,” she says. “We lied that I was caught in a forest fire—I loved hiking as a human—and Carlisle identified my body to the fire chief, my father, Christopher. When he heard the news of my death—although I’d been transformed—he was devastated. Your father and I went to see him on the night of my eighteenth human birthday, but it didn’t do much good. Your father wiped his memory after the incident, so my father didn’t realize he ever had a daughter...”

“What happened to him?”

“He married a woman named Melissa who worked at a restaurant in town,” she tells me. “I look in on them sometimes—inconspicuously, of course. They had three boys—Mason, Desmond, and Harold—and couldn’t be happier. Melissa bought the restaurant, and that, tied into my father’s chief job, got them a better house.”

“So, they’re happy?”

“Edward says they’re happy,” Mom replies. “He is a mind reader, after all.”

“Did he tell you what happened in the woods?”

“We heard you shouting,” Mom says, “but we didn’t see anything and Edward, surprisingly, didn’t offer any information.”

“Okay. Oh, Emmett!” I call in a sing-song voice, and drop down from my bedroom again, my mother following.

Emmett stamps outside, Rosalie behind him. “What?!” he demands.

I run to the other side of the yard—Carlisle and Esme, Edward and Bella, Alice and Jasper, and my parents watching. “Try to run at me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Run at me,” I order Emmett.

Emmett shrugs; his speed would clearly be the fastest of all of them, and as he ran, even I felt a little intimidated. “You’ll be sorry,” he warns.

Immediately, I throw up my hands. “Back!” I yell, and the blast comes off my palms and hits Emmett square in the chest, hurtling him backwards and causing him to land, hard, upon the staircase of the Cullen house.

Carlisle raises his eyebrows. “Telekinetic blast—very impressive,” he says approvingly as he turns to Esme.

“We haven’t seen one of those in fifty years,” she says softly.

“You’re gonna get it now!” Emmett says, running towards me after recovering.

I let out a laugh and turn away, running into the forest. I hear Emmett’s heavy footfalls behind me as I run deeper and deeper between the trees. I leap over the stream and over boulders as Emmett pursues me, and I soon discover that, as a newborn, I am the fastest and strongest in the house, which doesn’t bother me a bit. I run faster and faster, leaping over another boulder, when suddenly an unfamiliar scent invades my nose. I stop dead in my tracks, and Emmett does the same.

“What is that?” I whisper to him, noticing that Edward, Bella, and my parents have followed us as well.

“Rogue vampire,” Emmett reports. “I’ll tell Carlisle,” he says, running back off in the direction of the house.

“You’re the strongest right now,” Edward tells me. “Can’t get a read on who it is, but they mean us no harm.”

I nod. “I’ve got it,” I say. There is a boulder a good ten feet high above me, and I scale it immediately, peering over the other side. I stand upon it then, looking around. The scent pulls me in, and I jump off the other side and make my way through those trees, just walking, so as not to potentially miss the scent. It smells nice, not wet dog-like, so even though Edward identified it as a vampire, now I was one-hundred-percent sure I wasn’t inhaling werewolf.

“Hello?” I call, still getting used to my new voice. “Hello?”

“Hello?” the voice says, and I can hear it—hear her—just ahead.

“Don’t be afraid,” I say, and step forward.

“I’m not.” The second being emerges, and she’s far more superior in beauty than I am—she had raven hair and golden eyes, and she measures me up then. “What’s your name?” she asks me.

“Sarah,” I reply, “Seraphina...for long...”

The young woman laughs. “Rebecca,” she replies.

“How old are you?” I ask.

“Nineteen, when I was turned,” she tells me. “But I was turned five months ago,” she tells me promptly. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one when I was turned,” I reply, “I was just turned recently... Why were you turned?”

“Leukemia,” she replies. “You?”

“Car accident,” I tell her. “Nomad?”

“Clearly,” she says with a laugh. She inhales then, and I know she can smell the rest of them around the boulder. “Your family?”

“My parents and their brother and sister-in-law,” I reply. “Come on. May as well meet the family, right?” We scale the boulder together and land, firmly, upon the other side. “Mom, this is...”

“Henrietta!” my mother shouts.

Rebecca raises her eyebrows. “That’s my middle name... What...?”

My mother steps forward. “Do you have a birthmark on your inner arm?”

Rebecca raises her arm, a deep brown mark looking like a blotch against her pale skin. “I don’t know what to say...”

“I’m your birth mother,” Mom tells her.

Rebecca steps forward—even her steps are more graceful and elegant than mine, and it sets my teeth perfectly on edge. “Nice to meet you.” They stand awkwardly for a moment before the two of them embrace. “Wow... This really sucks. It’s times like this where I wish I still had the ability to cry...”

“What do you have the ability to do?” I ask smartly.

Rebecca’s eyes snap to me then, reaching out and cupping her hand beside my head. Then, she seems to be extracting something from my mind, which takes on the hue of pale purple smoke. She then seems to mold it—like someone doing origami would—and instantly conjures up a cat, which is exactly what I was thinking of. “I can take my thoughts or anyone else’s, extract them, and mold them into reality.”

I grit my teeth. “Isn’t that...nice?” I ask, and Edward looks away—he knows that I am less than thrilled to share my mother with someone else.

We all troop back to the house together, where I’m sure Carlisle will have more use for Rebecca than he will for me.


	2. Too Close for Comfort

I remember being a little girl, and how, for the first six years of my life, how wonderful life could truly be. I was an only child, and my parents always told me that they’d waited a long time for me, but that I wouldn’t be able to have any siblings. I accepted this without question, and harmony existed in the Grayson household up until a few months after my sixth birthday.

I’d always been paler than the rest of my peers, but my parents believed it had something to do with my mother’s family. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but after I kept falling and bruising easily, the schoolteachers suddenly seemed to notice that I was no ordinary little girl. I was summoned to the principal’s office one afternoon, about four months after my sixth birthday, and my principal demanded to know if my parents had ever hit me. I said ‘no’, of course, and he believed me, yet I was referred to a doctor just in case. I knew I was a ‘klutz’—at least that’s what my parents told me—but I always knew I was just a little bit different than my fellow students and other friends.

Upon our arrival at the doctors, I was told that I would need to have some tests done and, after a few weeks, was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, and they wanted to do more tests. Six weeks later, it was determined that my white blood cell count was off the charts and I needed to get more tests done. Two months later, just a few weeks before my seventh birthday, I was diagnosed with leukemia, and my parents swore to me that they wouldn’t allow it to destroy me. Before I knew it, I was on an experimental drug that took everything me—time, alertness, everything... Except for my hair. My hair was as lovely as ever, and to this day, I don’t understand why it stayed.

Despite the treatments, I could complete elementary school on time, and graduated at ten-years-old. Middle school was a bit of a challenge, and there were some whispers behind hands as I walked down the hallway. My mother had arranged for me to leave school during lunch for treatment twice a week, while the rest of the time, I dragged myself to class every day, forcing myself into learning. Middle school wrapped just five months before my fourteenth birthday, and then it was onto high school. In high school, I blossomed and was in firm remission by the end of my freshman year. I joined the acting society and performed in every school play I could get my hands on. By my senior year, I was the lead in the spring musical, and it was everything I ever wanted.

I’d been accepted into Stanford University, had the perfect drama geek/jock boyfriend in Derrick Fairfax, and things were looking up for me. However, just a week after graduation, my remission ended. I was almost eighteen, so they weren’t completely obligated to call in my parents, and I didn’t ask them to. My parents were too careful with me, almost as if I was a rare artifact of some kind, and I told the doctors that I didn’t want them involved. Upon graduation, I’d moved in with Derrick, and our plan was to attend Stanford together in the fall, and I’d been looking forward to my new life. That walk from the waiting room, by myself, into the exam room was the longest of my life.

“It’s back, isn’t it?” I asked Dr. Collins as soon as he’d entered the room and sat down. “I’m not a baby—just give it to me straight. It’s back?”

Dr. Collins was a balding man with thick glasses, yet a kind face. He looks over the notes from Nurse Chrissy just to be sure, and nods gravely. “Yes. I’m so sorry.” He sighs. “I heard you had plans to attend Stanford in September?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“My associate, Dr. Wethersfield, has her clinic in Stanford, just near campus.” He scrawls down some information on a referral sheet and hands it over to me. “I’ll send her an email and you can do the same. You’ll need to continue your treatment.”

I nod. “Yes, of course.” I keep quiet for most of the rest of the visit, while he checks my heart and lungs and all that before checking my blood count. The prognosis isn’t very good, and he tells me that I should begin treatment immediately after I move from Los Angeles and into Stanford, almost five and a half hours north. I thank him and leave, driving back to Derrick’s parents’ house and deliberately don’t say anything to them. In bed, later that night, however, Derrick breaks the ice.

“Is it back?”

I cursed myself in the darkness and sighed. “Yeah, Derrick. It’s back.”

Derrick swears and rolls over, holding me. “I love you—you know that, right?”

I nod. “Of course, Derrick. I love you, too.”

He switches on the light then and pulls a box out from his nightstand. “Will you marry me, then?” he asks, handing over the box with a diamond ring in it.

I gasp aloud. “Derrick, you know I’m still only seventeen,” I say.

“So? You’ll be eighteen in a few months. We can do it then. Don’t you want to get married, babe?” he asks. “Don’t you want to marry me?”

Quickly, I flash him a smile, even though I had my doubts. “Yes. Of course, Derrick. Of course, I’ll marry you!” I say, kissing him quickly and slipping the ring onto my finger. “It’s a lovely ring...”

Derrick and I pack our things over the next few weeks and are all moved up to Stanford by the last week of August. On our second day there, I had my first appointment with Dr. Wethersfield, and she was a kind, lovely woman. I was on a new kind of medication, and I was beginning to feel like my old self—that is, until Derrick’s former girlfriend, cheerleader Whitney Channing, suddenly reappeared in his life. She was attending Foothill College, a mere twelve minutes away from our place near Stanford, and I stupidly believed Derrick when he told me that he and Whitney were just friends.

Whitney had always hated me—she’d called me the ‘cancer girl’ from day one and joked that I couldn’t have cancer, because I was a Scorpio. She further spread rumors that when I had done the balcony scene from _Romeo and Juliet_ with Derrick, that he shouldn’t kiss me, because then he’d catch my cancer. Derrick finally stood up for me, broke up with Whitney, and began seeing me, and she said that I’d stolen him from her, and that she was pregnant. The pregnancy turned out to be a fake—not a false alarm, a _fake_. I remembered when Derrick told me he’d never trust Whitney again, and that I was all he ever needed in a girlfriend.

I kept getting treatment twice a week as soon as we’d moved to Stanford, and—while I was at treatment—Whitney and Derrick would be hanging out. I expressed my concern for this arrangement, and Derrick offered to go with me once a week to treatment, and I thought it was a good idea. However, after going with me steadily, right until a week after my birthday, he claimed he’d gotten a cold from someone in the hospital. I told him to stay in bed until I’d gotten back and promised to go to the grocery store and said that I’d make us dinner when he got back.

The walk across campus to the medical center was not a difficult one, and it was a very warm day, so capris and a tank top with a light sweater would suffice. I arrived about ten minutes before my appointment, and the receptionist handed over the paperwork for me to sign and I promptly filled it out as I’d been told to do. A nurse I’d never met came to collect me from the waiting room a few minutes later, and I followed her back and hesitated when she brought me to Dr. Wethersfield’s office. A lump in my throat, she took the paperwork from me and I perched in a chair.

Dr. Wethersfield wasn’t in her office, so, as soon as the nurse had closed the door, I got to my feet and went to check out her view—something I’d never done before. She had two windows on that side of her office, taking up the right corner by her desk, and I stared out of them and into the sunshine. I looked down at the beautiful campus from above; four frat guys threw a Frisbee to one another; two girls sat on a stone bench underneath a tree, trying to squeeze in some study time before classes began; and one couple was having a romantic picnic one of the lawns.

“Like the view?”

I turned at the sound of Dr. Wethersfield’s voice and smiled. “Yes—especially today. It’s gorgeous outside.”

“It is,” she agreed, crossing the room and making her way towards the back of her desk. “If you would come and sit down please, Rebecca.”

I nodded, crossing back to the chair I’d been occupying and sat down. “Just tell me... I mean, I think I already know where you’re heading with this...”

She sighs and nods, downhearted, and for the first time, I spot that her name tag says LAURA WETHERSFIELD; I wondered if she was married—the gold band said so—and if she had any children, and if she’d always wanted to be a doctor. “I’m so sorry, Rebecca—cancer medicine has only gone so far.”

“What happened?” I ask her.

“Such as with a woman’s body when she has preeclampsia—the body attacks the fetus as if it is a disease. Your body is attacking the chemotherapy similarly, in that it is entering your blood cells and your body is fighting it off like an infection, rather than working with it to combat your cancer itself.”

I lean forward and rest my head in my hands. “So, what do we do?”

“That was our last resort, I’m afraid,” she said softly. “I’ve called my associates in D.C., New York, Texas, Washington State, and in the United Kingdom, but it’s not doing any good. We simply cannot offer you more help at this time.”

I nod then, picking at a stray thread on my sweater. “Say I was to go without chemotherapy until something better came along—something that could help me. How long would I have, would you say?”

“Rebecca, I really think that...”

I lock my eyes to hers. “Tell me,” I reply. “Dr. Wethersfield, I’m eighteen years old—I’m not a child. Tell me, just as you would any other patient.”

“Initially, I’d say six months, but you are in much better shape than many others in your condition, so I’m giving you a year.”

“And how far away are you from developing something that can potentially save me, or at least prolong my life?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “At least five,” she says at last.

I nod, getting to my feet and putting out my hand. “Thank you, doctor,” I say, shaking her hand before slipping from the office. 

I walk back down the corridor and out the side entrance and leave the hospital entirely; I walk for a good half an hour and make my way into the Whole Foods Market, logically selecting a few things for that night, and I even bought a couple of steaks for our small grill on our balcony. I didn’t cry; I merely went through the market with a frozen expression on my face. how else is one supposed to act when they’ve been given the news that they’re going to die?

I pay for everything, barely smiling at the clerk before leaving the supermarket. I walk back to the apartment, only six minutes away from the market, and make my way up the staircase—it is in a lovely house, and Derrick and I rent the upstairs unit from a sweet elderly woman who frequently brought us cookies. I unlock the door and step inside, heading towards the kitchen and unpacking everything. I place the steaks and the other perishables into the fridge, and everything else scattered in various cupboards around the place. I then decide to head to the bedroom, where I hope Derrick still is, to tell him about my recent diagnosis.

Walking down the hall, I am in such a fog that I don’t hear the telltale sounds of bed springs squeaking. I open the door automatically and my eyes pop when I see it—Whitney wrapped around Derrick, in our bed. “You couldn’t have waited?” I ask them then, and it cuts me to the core that I sound broken.

“Becca!” Derrick shouts, shoving Whitney off and away from him and grabbing his T-shirt in one swift motion. “It’s not—”

“Don’t tell me ‘It’s not what it looks like’ or I swear to god, I will punch you!” I shout at him, my eyes turning to Whitney then. “And you, you couldn’t have waited a year?!”

“A year?!” she asks, her blonde eyebrows shooting up and her baby blue eyes popping. “I don’t get it...”

“I’m dying,” I tell them.

Whitney has the nerve to look pleased. “Finally,” she mutters.

“Whit, shut up!” Derrick says to her, turning to me. “What do you mean?”

“Dr. Wethersfield told me this afternoon,” I say, forcing myself not to lean against the door as the pair of them continue to dress themselves. “The treatment isn’t working, and it was a last resort. I have a year, give or take.”

“What are you going to do?” Derrick asks.

“First, this,” I say, taking off my ring and throwing it at him, square in the forehead. “It’s over, Derrick—seriously.” I then step forward and grab Whitney by the hair, ignoring her screams as I haul her down the hall. “I have to straighten some things out with Derrick, so you’ll have to go back to your community college campus!” I say, throwing her out the door and locking it behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and sigh. “I’m going to pack a bag and get out of here...”

“Bec...”

“No,” I say firmly. “I just want to get out of here.”

“Fine,” Derrick says.

I sigh. “Will you please send what I can’t take back to my parent’s house?”

“Yes,” he replies.

I nod. “Okay. Go outside and comfort Whitney while I pack, please.”

Once Derrick has left me alone, I pack a knapsack full of things, deciding to drive around for a bit, and see some of the world before I have to leave it. I write down my parent’s address for Derrick, along with strict instructions not to tell my parent’s anything, and not to send it for a few months so that they won’t stop my credit cards, although why would they notice, really? I finish my packing and head out, not looking back at Derrick or Whitney, who seem more than content to ignore me as I walk away from them. I get into my car and put the key into the ignition, and begin to drive.

My first stop was at the registrar on campus, where I withdrew my participation in person, and left the receptionist openmouthed at me turning down the top university in the State of California. I ignored her and kept walking, back outside to my car, and put my sunglasses down. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I soon find my way to the 152 highway and keep on it for over four hours. I soon realize that I am close to the Sierra National Forest, keeping steady on the road. I park in the parking lot provided for campers and just stare at the sheer beauty.

And that was the night that I took everything of value to me out of my car, and sold it for a few hundred dollars, and decided to live out the rest of my days in the woods.

. . .

Months passed, and I was stronger than ever due to all my walking. I’d never left the woods long-term, just to hitch the occasional an hour and a half drive to Auberry to go to their hole in the wall market for more supplies. I was happy in this simple life, and had even bribed Derrick to answer texts and emails from my parents—once I got my phone back to him, that is. I didn’t even notice when, for the second time, it was beginning to get colder out as September dawned; had things gone according to plan, I’d be married to Derrick and would have started my sophomore year at Stanford. But no, I was dying and I needed to live life to the fullest before it all ended.

I was quite shocked one day, a few weeks after my birthday, when I met some very beautiful beings as I trekked through the woods. They seemed to seize up when they saw me, but the tallest guy, who seemed to be in charge, held them back from me. They offered me company, and I offered them food, but they didn’t want any. We sat by the beautiful body of water in the woods, and while the others mostly wandered away, the main guy stayed by my side.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Rebecca,” I reply.

“Good to meet you,” he said, putting out a hand. “I’m Geoffrey.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“What brings you out here?” he wants to know.

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

I smirk a little then, reaching down and hurling a stone into the water; it skipped ever so slightly before sinking to the bottom. “I’m dying.”

Geoffrey looked startled. “What? Dying?”

I nod. “Yeah. I got leukemia when I was six and I was in remission in high school but it came back. Now I only have a few months left until I die.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” I reply.

“What were you doing before...this?”

I laugh. “I was engaged to my high school boyfriend and we were going to go to Stanford University together. I completed almost four months and then I got the diagnosis and found him cheating on me with his ex. So, I threw the ring at him, withdrew my participation at Stanford...and here I am.”

“What did you want to do?”

I turned and looked at him, holding his gaze. “First, I wanted to live,” I reply. “Then, I think I would have wanted to become an oncologist for children. That way, maybe I could figure out a bit about this disease that took control of my life.” I reach out and take his hand then and his eyes widen, almost as if he is processing something. “It’s good to finally talk to a neutral party about all of this. Thank you, Geoffrey,” I say, not even minding the abnormally cold temperature of his hands.

I went to bed that night, tucked up inside my sleeping back and inside my tent. I didn’t even care what happened to me, as long as I died quickly and painlessly in the middle of the night in my sleep. I could hear Geoffrey talking to his buddies before I found sleep, and I wondered if they were trying to convince him to mercy kill me or just abandon me altogether in these vast strings of woods. It didn’t matter to me—I’d be dead soon either way regardless.

Sleep found me, and I slept through the night, the orange glow of the sunlight waking me from my rest. Getting up, I tied my hair back in my customary ponytail, and slipped on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, topping it off with my winter coat as I stepped outside my tent, gathering everything on my back. Geoffrey’s friends took off the moment they saw me and Geoffrey came walking up to me.

“Good morning,” he said as I wolfed down some dry fruit for breakfast.

“Morning,” I reply.

“Tell me something,” he says.

“Anything.”

“If it meant that you could live, would you be willing to do anything?”

I shrug. “Depends. Anything illegal?”

“Not for you, no.”

I nod. “Can you tell me what it is?”

He sighs. “If I told you, then I’d have to do this to you or kill you. So, you can take your chances, or just trust me.”

I blink; it was like a clueless teenager having unprotected sex or playing Russian roulette —purely a live or die situation. I smile at him, knowing what to say. “I’m dying anyway, Geoffrey, you know that. What’s one more week or two? Tell me. I’m already starting to feel weaker as my time goes on. You’ll have to do whatever it is quickly, because, pretty soon, I won’t have the energy to answer yes or not.”

He shakes his head. “Rebecca, I’m a vampire,” he replies.

I raise my eyebrows. “You serious?” I demand quickly, ready to believe anything at this point—hey, what’s a dying girl to do?

He nods. “Yes—vampire. I am over two hundred years old—I was born during the English Victorian era, but here. I’m originally from Oregon. I was born in 1827, and I know this is really hard to understand, but you have to trust me.”

I had nothing to lose. “I trust you,” I reply.

“Okay,” Geoffrey says. “I’m have Truth Sense, which means I can see if you’re telling the truth about yourself. I knew from the moment you took my hand that you were telling the truth about dying, and I want to help. If I bit you, I could change you, but it is a highly dangerous operation...”

“How?”

“I’m a nomad, which means I drink human blood,” he replies. “Two covens, that I know of, drink the blood of animals. There is the Olympic Coven in Washington State, and the Denali Coven in Alaska. Most of the rest of us drink human blood; my friends and I are included in that rest. If I were to transform you, it would be very difficult for me to, once I bit you, to not suck your blood and kill you.”

“I’m dying anyway,” I reply, taking off my winter coat and setting it, along with the rest of my belongings, onto the ground. “Okay. Do it.”

Geoffrey lays my coat out like a tarp and motions for me to lie on it, which I do. “I’m sorry—it will hurt...”

I shake my head. “I survived chemotherapy from the time I was seven,” I tell him. “You can do whatever you want to me.”

He nods then, taking my hand, and nodding again—he knows I am telling him the truth in that moment. He bends down then, and makes quick work of biting my neck and sealing the wound with something—venom. He does the same to my arms in quick succession, and lifts my legwarmers and seems to do the same with my legs in quick succession. He takes my hand again as the pain takes over, and I register my pain, so that he seems to physically take on the pain as I proceed to writhe upon my winter coat.

“What did you do?!” I demand, feeling heat flowing through me then, and I proceed to practically bounce up and down upon my coat—much like a person with a demon possessing them would do. “It hurts,” I whisper.

Geoffrey reaches down and shuts my eyes, releasing my hand as I continue to writhe upon my coat below me. I can vaguely hear him telling his friends not to go near me, and I also hear the acquiescing to his demand, although with annoyance behind their tone. A dark void takes ahold then, and I realize, in that moment, that the transformation process is just beginning. I can hear Geoffrey whispering that it could last from one day to three, if it ends up working, and I mentally cross my fingers that it will.

And then, nothingness takes me.

. . .

This nothingness was not sleep, but it did appear to be a form of rest—for my mind at least, although my body seemed to be going a mile a minute. I felt my heat source slowly dwindling and evaporating, while I force my mind to remain dormant. I want very much to live, and I beg whoever oversees all this to let me live. I know that I could have lived a good life, but accept the fact that certain things aren’t meant to be. If I’m meant to die, I will accept it willingly...

. . .

“Rebecca?”

It is the first sound that I hear, apart from various birds or woodland creatures running about near me, and I wonder if it is Geoffrey. I don’t move, for fear I shall be unable to, and I hear him sigh. Immediately thinking that he thinks I’ve died, I hear his receding footsteps, and his voice informing his friends that it didn’t work. He believes that I am dead, and he seems to brokenhearted in that notion.

I permit myself to slowly open my eyes, and begin to rise. The sun is directly behind me now, and there I am, facing the lake, so I know some time has passed. Turning, I see some of Geoffrey’s friends pointing and motioning to me, and he turns around, his eyes wide. I give him a smile and get to my feet. I move to dash towards him to hug him, for _not_ killing me, but my dash turns in to a full-fledge sprint, and I speed towards him, throwing my arms around him in one swift motion.

“Ow,” Geoffrey says then, and I peek to see all his friends crowding around us.

“If you hurt him,” a redhead says to me, “then you’re definitely a vampire. Hey, Geoff, don’t make the poor kid feel bad!” she hollers, putting out her hand. “Lydia Chadwick—I was a lounge singer in Queens during the 1920’s. Did some night work on the side and one of my clients got the better of me—Geoff found me.”

“In an alley,” squeaks a blonde from beside her. “Daisy Flannigan,” she says. “I was a nurse for the Red Cross in World War II. Got shot trying to save my sweetheart—Geoff was working then; saved both of us...” She says, looking longingly at a man with pale brown hair beside her.

“Danny Flannigan. How do you do?” he asks.

“Fine, thank you,” I say, speaking for the first time, and having my eyes widen as a sound of chorus bells escapes my throat. “Oh, my...”

“So, are you going to stay?” the other man in the group asks, as my eyes turn to him. “Jake Wallis—Geoff’s boyfriend.”

I immediately pull away from Geoffrey, not wanting Jake to get the wrong idea. “Nice to meet you, Jake,” I say quickly.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Jake says, putting an arm around Geoffrey’s shoulders and staring me down. “You staying?” he asks, his accent vaguely Southern.

I sigh. “As much as I’m grateful for this other chance,” I say quickly, “no. I found out before I left to go to Stanford that the people that raised me adopted me at birth. I found a note from my birth mother, telling me that she was fifteen and that she loved me, but said that putting me up for adoption was the best thing. I looked her up and she lives in Forks, a city in Washington, now, and I want to go find her.”

Geoffrey nods like he understands and steps forward. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he tells me, and I embrace him again.

“Thank you,” I say.

I wave them off before returning to where I’d left all my belongings, and gathered them up as best I could. I found my knapsack—once incredibly heavy—was like carrying a pillow, if that. I decide to get out of the woods and find a highway, when suddenly, a wonderful smell wafts into my nose, burning my throat. Raising my eyes upwards, I spot an American Black Bear, and know immediately that I must hunt it, kill it, and drink it dry.

I drop my things silently, skulking around the great beast, my throat burning with the sensation that it must be fed. I dash forward when it enters my midst, and the bear has the audacity to look shocked as I attack it then, tearing at its throat with my teeth, its warm, red blood dripping down my throat. He heaves above me once he’s finally dying, and I drop his corpse before stepping away from him. I feel bad, knowing that they are endangered, but also know that I should keep fed, and vow not to do so very often.

Before leaving California, I know I must make one stop first, and make my way back to the Stanford campus. I don’t hitch a ride, because I soon discovered—due to a mirror I’d found in my belongings—that, while I was beautiful, my eyes were red. I put on my sunglasses for most of my run, and manage to get there smoothly. I find the apartment that I’d been living in with Derrick, and, peering through the window, see that he is still living there, now with Whitney. It doesn’t take much effort to pick the lock and let myself in, and I shut and bolt the door behind me. I make my way down the hall then, and kick open the bedroom door and Derrick and Whitney shout.

“What the hell?!” she squeaks.

“Becca?” Derrick demands. “What...?”

I take off my glasses then and grin at them, and they understandably scream at the sight of my new eyes. I dash forward then, and I see the fear in their eyes. “I’m a vampire now,” I say softly, deliberately to them, “and due to all the pain and suffering you both have caused me, now you’re going to pay.” I lean down then and kill Whitney first, careful not to drink any of her blood as I do so. Then, I move onto Derrick, whose screams of agony are getting on my nerves. As he dies by my hands, I pull my hands back from his head, which I’d been gripping, and gasped at what I saw.

Shades of purple smoke came out from his head then as my hand loosened his grip, and I found that my hands moved automatically. It conjured up a small memory of the two of us talking, before fading away. Shaking, I leave the house in the dead of night, vowing never to return.

I find the woods again, walking aimlessly, and only stopping to feed when it was completely necessary. I didn’t think I should be finding my mother just yet—she was a human, after all, and she would be susceptible to my drinking ways. I kept to the woods as the weeks went by, and remained there until the summer, when it was warmer, and I could travel around more inconspicuously.

I managed to find out which way was north, and head in that direction along the trial. I always make sure that, when I smell a human, to stop breathing and not make direct eye contact with any of them. I finally reach the edge of it along Lake Tahoe, and continue along the highway to Lassen Volcanic National Park. It takes me less than half a day to do so and then I head through Modoc National Forest.

This takes me over the border and into Oregon, where I ultimately end up in the Umpqua National Forest and onwards towards the Washington border. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest is next, and I trek through there until I dash through open ground to the Capital State Forest. It is there that I must hunt again, and I manage to find a deer which suits my fancy. I make my way to Forks proper as the hours go by, ending up in the woods where I managed to find a lake to bathe in. I change into the outfit that I’d stolen from Whitney—I had to admit, the dead girl had taste—as the sun slowly began to set in the distance. I caught a whiff of something on the wind, and I found that, initially, I was unable to place it properly.

“What is that?” a young woman’s voice whispers.

“Rogue vampire,” a man reports. “I’ll tell Carlisle,” he says, and I hear him running back off in the opposite direction.

“You’re the strongest right now,” says a second male to the young woman. “Can’t get a read on who it is, but they mean us no harm.”

_Damn, he was certainly trusting, _I think to myself.

“I’ve got it,” the young woman says. There is a boulder a dozen feet high, and it’s close enough to me that I could scale it, and I don’t move to do so. However, almost, immediately, peering over the other side I see it. The second vampire stands upon it then, looking around her surroundings. The scent pulls me in, and she jumps off the other side and makes her way through the trees, just walking, so as not to potentially miss the scent.

“Hello?” she calls. “Hello?”

“Hello?” I say.

“Don’t be afraid,” she says, and steps forward.

“I’m not.” I emerge, and I raise my eyebrows—she had brown hair and red eyes, and she measures me up then. “What’s your name?” I ask her.

“Sarah,” she replies, “Seraphina...for long...”

I cannot help but laugh. “Rebecca,” I reply.

“How old are you?” she asks.

“Nineteen, when I was turned,” I tell her. “But I was turned five months ago,” I tell her promptly. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one when I was turned,” she replies, “I was just turned recently... Why were you turned?”

“Leukemia,” I reply. “You?”

“Car accident,” she tells me. “Nomad?”

“Clearly,” I say with a laugh. I inhale her then, and I can easily smell the rest of them around the boulder. “Your family?”

“My parents and their brother and sister-in-law,” she replies. “Come on. May as well meet the family, right?”

We scale the boulder together and land, firmly, upon the other side.

“Mom, this is...” Sarah begins.

“Henrietta!” the woman shouts.

I raise my eyebrows. “That’s my middle name... What...?” I say, meaning to say, ‘What is going on?’ but am too shocked to continue.

The woman steps forward. “Do you have a birth mark on your inner arm?”

I raise her arm, a deep brown mark looking like a blotch against my pale skin. “I don’t know what to say...”

“I’m your birth mother,” the woman tells me.

I step forward—not knowing what to think, and how easy my journey has concluded. “Nice to meet you.” WE stand awkwardly for a moment before the two of us embrace. “Wow... This really sucks. It’s times like this where I wish I still had the ability to cry...”

“What do you have the ability to do?” Sarah asks smartly.

My eyes snap to hers then, reaching out and cupping my hand beside her head. Then—not knowing if it will work—I extract something from her mind, which again takes on the hue of pale purple smoke. Then, I mold it—like someone doing origami would—and instantly conjure up a cat, which is exactly what Sarah was thinking of. “I can take my thoughts or anyone else’s, extract them, and mold them into reality.”

Sarah grit my teeth. “Isn’t that...nice?”

_I don’t know—I don’t know what’s nice or not nice anymore_, I think to myself. The rest of them turn and I follow them, up to the impressive house, just over a stream and through more trees. As we walk, my mother introduces her husband, Richard, as well as her brother and sister-in-law, Edward and Bella. My mother tells me her name is Elizabeth, but that she goes by Beth, which I agree to call her for now.

A short young woman with a black pixie cut comes out of the house; she clearly has fashion sense going for her, and her little bow mouth smiles as I approach. “So, she’s finally here, then?” she asks.

“But, my shield,” my mother says, shaking her head.

“I saw it long ago,” the woman says, stepping off the porch and dashing towards me, holding out her hand. “Alice Cullen. So wonderful to meet you at last. You kept us waiting an awfully long time...”

I blink. “I’m sorry about that,” I say, quietly.

Sarah groans. “_Stop_ being so polite!” she shouts, charging up to the edge of the house and jumping up towards a window, which I assume to be her room.

My mother’s husband lightly puts an arm around my shoulder. “She’ll come around,” he tells me gently.

I sigh. “Sooner rather than later, I hope,” I say, as two more vampires step out from the impressive house.

“Carlisle and Esme,” my mother whispers to me.

“Nice to meet you,” I say.

Esme smiles. “Welcome to the family,” she says.

Carlisle smiles. “Are you as gifted as your mother?” he asks.

“She is,” Edward assures him.

“Let’s see it,” says a man, coming out behind them, whose voice I heard in the woods. “I’m never afraid to take it from your side of the family.”

I smile at him at step forward. “Prepare yourself,” I reply.


	3. Don’t Think Twice

I jump into my bedroom via the window with the efficiency of an Olympic gymnast and perch upon the edge of my bed. I can hear the telltale sound of laughter coming from down in the garden below and get to my feet, peering outside. I can see everyone trying to welcome this Rebecca chick into the family, and it just sets my fangs on edge. I have to get out of there, to get some space from it all, but I realize then that I have nowhere to go. Then, it suddenly hits me—I did not need permission to leave.

Quickly, I throw some things into a suitcase—still packed from my homecoming—and leave my bedroom. It had been five months since my transformation, so my eyes were a lovely amber in color, and I’d been able to have my license changed accordingly, so that wasn’t an issue. My passport was in my carry-on bag, and I slipped out the back door of the house and caught Luke and Frankie coming home. After a momentary double-take, which they frequently did due to their long absences, I convinced them to give me a ride to the airport while I checked available flights online.

“How much are we getting for playing chauffeur?” Luke asks as I sit in the dead center of their back seat, and as Frankie turns around.

“Fifty each—that’s for the ride and keeping your mouths shut until my plane has taken off,” I tell them. “We got a deal?”

“Yeah,” Frankie said. “But what’s the issue?”

“Did you know that Mom had another kid? A bio one—as in, one that she didn’t feel sorry for and adopted.”

Luke looks hurt from behind the steering wheel as he navigates himself accordingly on the freeway. “No...”

“Pull over,” I grumble. “I’ll double your money if you let me drive.”

My seventeen-year-old brother sighs and gets out from the driver’s seat, allowing me to sit there while he and Frankie—who always have to be together—climbs into the backseat next to him.

“We didn’t know,” Frankie says as I step on the gas. “Damn...you drive as fast as Mom, Dad, and the rest of the family do...”

“Sit back, buckle up, and shut up,” I grumble.

“That’s the other thing,” Luke continues. “Your voice is so different now—kind of like you’re singing or something...”

I shrug. “Whatever. I took lessons in college. Must be it...”

“No, you’re different,” Frankie says, his voice sounding a hundred-percent sure. “You’re turned into something magical like everyone else...”

“Can’t be a wolf,” Luke joked, for everyone knew about Jacob and Embry because of our connections to them. “She doesn’t tear her clothes off.”

“I can’t tell you what’s different about me,” I say, quickly meeting their eyes in the rear-view mirror, “because I don’t want to take responsibility for you, or kill you. Now, if you just fall asleep, we’ll get to the airport before you know it. Then, you’ll have your cash and I’ll be out of your hair...”

“No.” Frankie crosses his arms. “Where are you going?”

“London,” I say. “I got a minor in European history while I was at Yale and I figure I should see some of what I learned about... Besides, Carlisle has that house out there that he gave to Mom and Dad. I figure I can crash there for a few days...”

“Not without us,” Luke protests. “Even if you pay us, we’ll rat you out to Mom and Dad as soon as we get home.”

“Take us with you,” Frankie begs, “then you don’t have to pay us or worry about us blabbing to Mom and Dad about you running off.”

“You can’t come,” I counter. “For one thing, you don’t have tickets. For another thing, I don’t want to bring you.”

“Too late,” Luke says. “Just snagged the last two tickets in first class.”

“But you don’t have passports,” I say. “This isn’t a trip to Disneyland—you need more than a photo I.D. to get across the country and to leave it.”

“Carlisle told us not to, but we keep our passports in the glove compartment,” Frankie confessed as Luke proceeded to finalize their ticket purchase.

“And luggage?” I demand. “I’m not dragging your sorry asses around town to buy you clothes so that you look good enough to impress English schoolgirls...”

“It’s not like we’re going to a foreign country where nobody speaks English,” Luke replied rather heatedly.

“Of course, we know every language you know,” Frankie said.

I purse my lips; my brothers and I had been taught about the importance of education and had been fluent in several languages for years. We’d been taught French and Spanish by elementary school, and had picked up Greek and Italian by middle school. In high school, however, we’d negotiated with the principal to have a private study of a language of our choice—due to us being fluent in French and Spanish already. Every year, we took and mastered a new language; my freshman language was Japanese; for my sophomore year, I took Mandarin; for my junior year, I took ASL; and for my senior year, I took Portuguese. In college, I’d managed to master Hindi, Arabic, Russian, and German. So that my brothers didn’t have to take time to think about it, they just took the same classes and tutoring programs I did, so they knew almost all the languages I did, apart from the ones I took while in college.

I roll my eyes. “Fine. Whatever. It’s not like we don’t have access to credit cards or anything like that...”

“Plus, Frankie and I have our suitcases in the back from that camping trip we went on over the weekend. They must have a washing machine unit in the house...”

“Fine.” My voice is hard.

“What’s your deal?” Frankie asks.

“Yeah, you’re freaking us out,” Luke says.

I shrug. “Nothing it’s just Mom’s bio daughter,” I say as I speed closer and closer to the airport to catch our flight. “She seems to have everyone wrapped around her perfectly manicured fingers...” I manage to evade an obviously drunk driver as I continue along the highway towards SeaTac Airport. “I don’t know. You guys got to stay with Rosemary and Andy from birth so you never got sent to various foster homes, where you were rejected just for being yourself. And this Rebecca girl was adopted at birth, but not me—I had to wait four years before I was taken in by Mom. She didn’t know about me, but she knew about you two, and Rebecca...”

Luke and Frankie had the consideration to remain silent for the duration of the drive to the airport, which was far quicker than I ever expected. We paid for a ticket in the parking lot and went inside, printing our boarding passes and getting our bags checked. I paid for all our suitcases and we went into the security line, our passports ready to be handed over. We then took off our shoes and anything metallic before being granted permission to walk through the metal detector and were given back our belongings. Checking our boarding passes again, I saw that our gate was B9, and we made our way to there promptly, all the while I focused on not deliberately inhaling.

Since we were first class, we boarded within ten minutes and the boys took their seats together. I’d booked two different plane tickets but had disposed of the second one properly so as I wouldn’t have to sit next to anyone during to flight. _The last thing I wanted was the fatality of a complete stranger_, I mused as we prepared for takeoff. I told the two flight attendants on duty that I didn’t want anything, but Luke and Frankie went through as much Coke as they could possibly get. Shaking my head, I turned and gazed out the window, wondering when—and if—my parents would notice that three of their now four children were gone...

Even though it was summer, I knew I could be prosecuted for allowing my brothers to go with me overseas, because they were still minors. However, if the police or the FBI or CIA or whoever decided to look into it, they’d notice that their tickets were bought with their credit cards. And, to top it all off, they were taller than I was, although they wouldn’t be physically stronger than I was again, until or unless they were changed. I peeked at them as they made funny remarks to one another, and heard every word, despite their attempts at whispered conversation. I leaned back against the comfortable seat and shut my eyes, and waited for us to land so that one of us could call our parents and hope that nobody would call the police.

. . .

After getting off the plane, I realized that I would have to hunt in the nearby Epping Forest near Essex and Greater London. I looked up the terrain and discovered that the only things to hunt there were a couple of varieties of deer, which I knew full well would have to suffice for however long I intended to be away. My brothers and I made our way to baggage claim, and I found I did not have any messages from anyone in my family, so either they believed I was just away for a short time, or they were far too preoccupied with my newfound, more talented, more beautiful, and more everything younger sister to car. I decided to push it out of my mind, until Luke and Frankie got a good look at their own cell phones in the airport.

“Mom knows we’re gone,” Luke reported.

“She even said that she assumes we’re with you and that we’re probably safe,” Frankie puts in, slinging his duffel onto his shoulder.

“She says you can stay here for as long as you want but if me and Frankie aren’t back for our senior year in September we’re dead,” Luke says.

“Assure her that, despite her lack of communication towards me, I’ll probably be sick of you by the end of the week,” I say, heading outside and making my way to a rent-a-car place and picking out one that got good mileage and had an excellent GPS system. I motioned for the boys to pile in the back as I handed over my premium-looking credit card—which, oddly, wasn’t cancelled at all—and got into the front seat. I keyed in the address for the house in London, near the campus of Oxford University, and made the normally forty-five-minute journey in twenty minutes.

We arrived at the house in good time, and I inwardly swore at myself, knowing I’d have to go online to a grocery shopping website to order the boys some food. Heading in with our luggage in tow, and I tell the boys that I am taking over the master bedroom, and they head in the opposite direction to squabble over the remaining half a dozen or so bedrooms this house has left. I put my suitcase down onto the bed, and I vaguely hear Luke and Frankie talking about Mom, Dad, the new addition formally known as Rebecca, and how much I’ve changed in the last several months.

Rolling my eyes, I pull out my laptop and to the little cupboard in the bedroom where Mom always hid the spare adaptors and plug everything into the wall. As my laptop charges, I am able to crack the latest Wifi password and get onto the internet, updating my settings to the UK search engine to properly search for things. My mind is momentarily thrown with the various switches of ‘S’ for ‘Z’ and ‘OU’ in certain words instead of just ‘O’ on its own but I soon pick up on British English jargon. I have meats, cheeses, chips (or crisps), cookies (or biscuits) sent over to the house; the meats are anywhere from deli meats to good-sized steaks which I know is a weakness for my brothers. I find myself a bit saddened, for, despite my trim physique, I’d loved food as a human but had had such a fast metabolism that I never seemed to gain anything.

I set the delivery time for around five that evening, and decided to drive to the forest to get a hunt in. I told the boys that I was going for a run and persuaded them to sleep off the jet lag they probably had from the time difference. I left them on their own to unpack and told them that food would be coming around five, but that I should be back in time to make them dinner; throwing a frozen pizza in the oven or boiling pasta was about all they knew when it came to cooking, so I vowed to teach them a thing or three now that I had them all to myself.

I got into the car and pulled safely out of the driveway and made my way towards the route which would ultimately get me to the forest. I could drive at relatively the speed I wanted, making sure not to attract the attention of the constables. I reached the edge of the forest as the sun peaked at about seventy-five percent in the sky, parking my car in the rest area as four o’clock loomed. I knew I had to be very careful, as humans could be enjoying the forest at this hour, but crossed my fingers that it would be mostly deserted.

Walking into the woods themselves, I inhaled sharply, getting the feel of the unfamiliar terrain. Coming here as a child, when Mom and Dad would go out for an hour or two, I just figured that they were doing normal married couple things. Now, looking back on it, they had probably gone out hunting for a meal here or there. As I launched myself off the edge of the trail as something wafted into my nose, I was off, pushing my feet further and further off the ground, darting faster towards the scent.

A rather large Fallow Deer loomed just before me, and I saw by its impressive antlers that it certainly had aged a bit. I inhaled for the scent of humans and, finding none, jumped away from my hiding place and attacked the animal. The killing was swift, and my thirst was sustained once I’d sucked the animal dry. Letting go of the impressive beast—and quickly making sure that none of its offending manner had damaged my clothes—I left the forest quickly and got back to the main trail. It was then that I caught the sharp whiff of humans coming towards me, and then I heard them screaming. I knew they couldn’t have seen the deer, as it was from the opposite direction, so it had to have been something else to provoke their sense of fear.

Charging around the bend, I saw the form of something—clearly a vampire—poised for the kill. Shocked at this turn of events, I launched myself upwards, shocking the people, and dove in between them. “_What_ do you think you’re doing?!” I snapped at the vampire as I landed, ignoring the obvious fact that he was the most gorgeous being I’d ever seen, other than his red eyes.

He registers shock briefly before looking me over, and he sees me for what I am. “I am attempting, stranger with a pretty face, to enjoy a meal.”

“How long?” I say, nodding to him.

He shrugs. “Nearly four hundred years. You?”

I give him a cool smile. “Five months. So I am stronger than you are.” I quickly turn to the people behind me—two parents and their two small children—and step forward. “You will leave here at once, and return home. You will not remember any of this, and you will simply go on with your lives. Now, run!”

Immediately, they turn and run off, as if soldiers on the front line, and I hear faint clapping from behind me.

“Ah, a persuasive vampire. How lovely,” the man says.

I turn and face him. “I was so naturally persuasive in my human life that I never needed to use it. I suppose that changes things now.”

“What else can you do?” he asks. “I’m curious.”

I smile and lift up my hand. “Are you sure you want to know?”

He chuckles. “Yes.”

Without hesitation, I blast him backwards, and he immediately goes flying but manages to land on his feet. As he does so, I see beams of zinging light coming forth from his fingertips, and he can use those to keep himself from falling. The buzzing lights hold him upwards and he can use them to walk to me, a sly grin on his impossibly handsome face.

“Is that _all_?”

I promptly scream at him, and he has the nerve to look afraid. “No,” I say, once I’ve finished with him. Immediately crossing towards him, he steps away from me, but I manage to reach out and grab ahold of his wrist. “Hold still, I won’t hurt you,” I grumble. I see into his past then, and see him on board a ship in the middle of the ocean. It is a very old ship, and this man is only a boy of about ten on this ship, and I instinctively know what it is. “You were aboard the Mayflower,” I whisper.

The man struggles. “How can you possibly know...?”

“Shush!” I snap. “Born in England, your mother and father escaped British rule to practice the religion they wanted, like so many. George and Mary were their names,” I whisper, and find myself learning all about his childhood. “You had a little sister named Anne and a brother named William. You wanted desperately to be a capable big brother, but William died aboard ship and Anne was so weak that she was never the same again. Your father was a beastly man who would... Oh, dear,” I whisper, seeing visions of George beating poor Mary while she was visibly pregnant with a fourth child. “Your youngest sister Jane was born in America but your mother had tired of being chased around by your father so after Jane died your mother instructed you to help kill your father, and then you ran away from home...”

The man pulls his arm away from me, hard. “What witch-like power do you possess?!” he demands, hurt in his crimson eyes.

“Psychometry,” I reply simply. “I can see your past and/or future. I mainly see pasts,” I say, moving behind him as he walks away from me. “Where are you going?”

“To find someone else to eat,” he says, looking me over. “You look like you need someone else to eat. Your eyes are all wrong.”

I raise my eyebrows. “I’m a vegetarian,” I reply.

The man stops walking and turns to look at me, shocked at my declaration. “What did you just say you were?” he asks, his tone riddled with confusion.

“A vegetarian,” I reply slowly. “I drink animal blood.”

“And that’s better?” he asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t drunk human blood and I never will.” I hesitate for a moment before continuing, “My whole coven are vegetarians. It was very simple to become a part of the lifestyle.”

“Your coven? You’re not a nomad?”

I shake my head. “No. I’m a college-educated woman from a good family.”

“Where are you from?”

“Forks, Washington,” I reply.

“You’re a part of that coven that rivals the Volturi!” the man said, shocked. “The Cullen’s or something, right?”

I smile a little at that; this mysterious stranger had heard of my family. “Yes,” I say, cursing myself to keep the proudness out of my tone.

“And who might you be?” he asks.

“Their newest member,” I reply. “My mother was adopted into the family as a teenager—which, I guess now she still is—and my mother, who is biologically my half-sister, adopted me and I became a member at four. I wasn’t transformed until I was twenty-one, however, and my brothers are still human...”

“Yes, but what’s your name?”

“Seraphina Alexandrine Cullen,” I reply, putting out my hand. “I go by Sarah.”

“H or no H?” he asks.

I smile, thankful I’m not the only one who asks that question. “H,” I reply. “And who might _you_ be?” I ask him.

“Ambrose,” he tells me. “Ambrose Isaac Constantine. I was turned at twenty-two after the law began catching up with me after I murdered my father when I was sixteen. I’d been on the run for eight years when I met up with my mother’s older brother, Robert, who knew of someone who could help me. The only rule was that I couldn’t ask questions, so I didn’t, and I was smuggled out of Massachusetts and brought to Texas where I was transformed. I took on a new identity every twenty years or so, before everyone died and I could resume a relatively normal life... How were you changed?”

“I was twenty-one,” I say again. “I had just returned home after graduating from college and my two best friends and I were driving to a celebration dinner in another city. The ditzy one decided it was an opportune time to take a selfie. We crashed into a tree—she was driving—and they were both in the front seat. Both were dead on impact but I was in the back seat and despite everything, I managed to live. I was impaled by the tree we’d crashed into but my grandfather, who’s also a doctor and leader of our coven, persuaded my mother to transform me and to save my life...”

“But if you’re from Forks, why are you here?”

I sigh. “That’s complicated...”

“I have time.”

I smile at that; had I come to London alone, I may have dragged him back to the house and brought him to the master bedroom where I would alternate between making love to him and instructing him on the ways of vampire vegetarianism. “I don’t have time,” I reply. “I have to get home and make dinner for my brothers.”

Ambrose grins. “I can help.”

“No, you can’t. They’re seventeen and, like I said, they’re still human. My parents wanted us to be eighteen before we were changed, at minimum, if we even wanted to be changed at all, and they’re not eighteen.”

“The rules of our world state that you have to be changed or you have to be silenced if you know about us. Once they know, the logical choice is to be changed so that you can continue to live, for lack of a better word...”

I shrug. “They’re not eighteen until next year...”

“Didn’t they break the rules by traveling across country lines without a parent or guardian as well?” Ambrose asks.

I sigh. “My parents would kill me if...”

Ambrose steps forward. “You are my first ray of sunshine in the last hundred years,” he tells me, and tilts my chin up.

“Stop it, I just met you. Besides, you should see my sister,” I say, sneering the word and pulling up Rebecca’s Facebook page on my phone, where the pain in the perfect ass herself had already friended and messaged me.

“You do look alike...”

“Half-sister,” I say quickly. “Same dads, you know how it goes. But my biological mother is her grandmother, so...”

Ambrose immediately looks shocked. “What?!”

“Long story,” I say, waving the selfie in Ambrose’s face.

Ambrose shrugs at the photo. “Yeah, she’s hot, I guess, but like Hollywood hot. It’s totally overdone and it’s enough now. _You_, on the other hand, look like you walked out of the most beautiful oil painting in the world.”

I feel my eyebrows knitting together at that. “Was that supposed to be some form of a compliment?” I demand.

Ambrose runs a hand through his deep brown hair. “Honestly, I don’t do this very often,” he tells me, shaking his head. “It’s very difficult—it’s not like there are any verifiable vampire dating apps...”

“Not yet,” I say. “Give it another ten years. They’re coming.”

Ambrose sighs. “I can’t explain it. My electricity started pumping from inside me from the moment I saw you. Don’t you know what I mean?”

“I know you’re a perv!” I cry, blasting him backwards. I knew _exactly_ what he meant, and he wasn’t going to get away with it. I ran from the clearing towards my car, and managed to get inside safely. I was buckled and the key was in the ignition when suddenly, Ambrose was sitting beside me, studying his nails.

“Pity you left me there,” he said conversationally. “I was going to suggest a romantic walk through a grove of trees.”

“While you scoped out your next meal,” I grumble. I sigh and put my head down against the steering wheel. “Okay, yes, I felt something. But I just met you and you’re not a vegetarian which is kind of a deal-breaker for me,” I say, raising my head, “even though you’re, like, insanely gorgeous and your muscles are rippling... And, my god, I never talk like this, but, hey, we’re immortal, so we can say whatever we want now, right? Right?” I ask, feeling like a nerdy girl being rejected by a jock for a prom date.

Ambrose smiles, putting a finger under my chin so that my eyes lock on his. “You’re beautiful,” he says simply, and leans in, brushing his lips with mine.

The moment our lips meet, I know then that something is quite different. It was different than it was with Embry, where I felt constantly trapped in his strong embrace without the notion that I could get away. This was as if two souls were finally meeting, and one of them was mine. I felt as if I was flying around the moon and the sun and the planet itself; I was hot and cold all at once and I felt completely amazing.

“Besides,” Ambrose said as he broke our kiss, “you have demonstrated your power of persuasion. You could just tell them to forget about it if they don’t want to be changed into something else.”

I felt myself laughing then. “You’re amazing!” I cry, throwing myself at him and silencing him with a second kiss.

. . .

Once we arrive back at the house, I can tell that Ambrose is overwhelmed by the architecture. I was shocked to discover that he’d put his small duffel bag in the back seat and ordered him to take a shower as soon as we’d arrived. Our bags groceries for the boys arrived soon thereafter and I decided to whip up a couple of steaks for them. I remembered in the woods how I’d managed to get Ambrose to hunt a deer and, while he informed me it wasn’t as satisfying as hunting humans, he told me that he would do his best to conform to my lifestyle.

As I cook the steaks, Luke and Frankie come into the kitchen, looking perplexed at the smell coming from that room. I tell them that I am making them steak, baked mac and cheese, and a salad for dinner, and they look plenty happy at that. When they’re not looking, I put a cake into another one of the ovens, as I’d also gotten some ice cream from the grocery store as well. Luke produced a football and Frankie was game so they went into the massive backyard and proceeded to play some one on one.

Ambrose came downstairs after his shower, and looked outside. “Those your brothers?” he asked me.

“Yes. Biologically and by adoption,” I report.

“What are their names?”

“Frankie is the one who’s half an inch taller,” I report. “And Luke is the other one.”

“Damn, how do you tell them apart?” Ambrose asked. “They’re nearly as tall as I am,” he mused to himself in his six-feet-four glory.

“They’re as tall as my uncle, Edward,” I reply. “And I guess it was easy because of their personalities—plus Luke’s nose is longer and thinner,” I tell him. “Luke was more into sports and Frankie was more into music.”

“Frankie plays?” Ambrose asked.

I nod. “Electric guitar,” I reply, stirring my béchamel sauce. “He has a band, actually, and Luke was on the junior varsity football team freshman and sophomore year. He just made varsity last year, and got quarterback.”

“And how about you?” Ambrose asks.

I shrug. “I know thirteen languages, and I have a degree in criminal law and a degree in English history...”

“Do they know thirteen languages?” Ambrose wants to know, pointing out the window at Luke and Frankie.

I laugh and shake my head. “No. Just ten languages,” I tell him.

“That’s still impressive,” Ambrose replies. “I don’t know thirteen. I just know French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Mandarin, and Japanese...”

I nod. “I know those,” I say, knowing that I’d be blushing right now if it weren’t for the lack of human blood in my system.

“But you still haven’t answered my question,” Ambrose presses as I transfer the completed béchamel sauce into a casserole with the cooked macaroni. “What did you do back in high school when the boys played sports and music?”

“Studied,” I replied. “My mom did drama and so did my dad but even though I considered it I just never got around to it...” When I see Ambrose’s expression, I sigh a little, knowing that he wants an answer. “Okay. I can sing.”

“Sing? Really?” Ambrose asks, gleeful.

“Yes,” I say, stirring the sauce into the macaroni and adding another layer of cheese to it. “I even sang for Frankie’s band...”

“Did you?”

I shake my head. “A few times,” I tell him. “They became the hottest band in that small little town because they had a high school senior headlining for them...” I shake my head as I put the macaroni and cheese into the oven.

Dinner is finished within the hour and I call the boys into dinner and Ambrose sets the table per my specifications. Once the boys are in, they’re introduced to Ambrose, who they whisper to themselves is on drugs as they go into the bathroom to wash their hands. Once they’ve washed, they sit at the table, and remind themselves of the supposed juice cleanse I’m on, so I won’t be eating. I get the cake—sliced up big for them—once they’ve finished everything else and wait for them to finish before I speak.

“Guys, you know how everyone in our family is different?”

“Like your skin?” Luke asks.

“And your eyes?” Frankie puts in.

I nod. “Yes. Well, the way we’re different is that we’re not...human.”

Luke laughs. “Yeah, right...”

“Impossible,” Frankie says, ever the logical one.

“It’s true,” Ambrose says, speaking for the first time since being introduced. “We’re not human—we’re vampires.”

Luke shakes his head. “Real funny, guys.”

“Is this one of those T.V. shows where you prank people?” Frankie asks.

I sigh and shake my head. “It’s true,” I say, putting on the persuasive charm.

Immediately, both boys become rigid.

“Okay,” Luke says.

“We believe you,” Frankie assures us.

“Do you like being human?” Ambrose asks directly.

They shrug.

“You could be like us,” Ambrose says.

Luke’s eyes widen. “Wait. Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I confirm.

Frankie shrugs. “I don’t know...”

“You get magic powers sometimes,” Ambrose says.

“Cool!” Luke shouts. “I’m in!”

“Wait, guys...” I try.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Frankie says.

I shake my head, turning off my persuasive nature. “Mom and Dad wanted you to wait until you were eighteen...”

“We don’t wanna wait,” Luke says.

“Change us,” Frankie says in a determined tone of voice.

I sigh. “Ambrose.”

Ambrose gets up and leaves the room, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself if the boys were in a vulnerable state.

“Come upstairs,” I order, and the boys follow me willingly. I tell them to go to their rooms and I wait for them to get settled. Then, I go to Luke’s room first, as he was the older one, and let out a sigh. “This may seem weird, but...”

“Just do it,” he says, never one for sentiments.

“Fine.” I lean down and, recalling what Mom did to me, I bite him in several places—once on the neck, then twice each on his arms and legs—before sealing the wounds with my venom. As Luke screams, I walk out of the room, and make my way down the hall to Frankie’s room.

My youngest brother has the sense to look terrified. “You didn’t say it would hurt...”

I raise my eyebrows. “You’d back out of immortality and magical powers now?”

“Well, no...” Frankie says.

I nod. “Good.” I do the same thing to Frankie that I did to Luke, and leave Frankie in his bedroom. I then go into my bedroom, and feel myself shaking, and I fly immediately into Ambrose’s arms. “What the hell did I just do?!” I whisper.

“Could you turn your persuasive nature onto yourself?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I’m not sure...” I reply.

. . .

It takes a full two days before the whole transformation takes effect. I’m thankful that all the bedrooms have soundproofing systems in place, otherwise I think the coppers would have come to call more than once. Ambrose and I take turns watching my brothers, and Ambrose—although he must feed twice as much to ensure that the human blood gets out of his system—is doing well with his vegetarian diet.

Finally, after two days and a handful of hours, the transformation of my brothers is complete, and I no longer have any humans in my immediate family. Ambrose and I have since moved them to one room, so as they can be together when they wake up. Luke wakes up a full five minutes before his brother.

Luke’s eyes open, the crimson color a shock where his blue eyes once were. His features are highlighted and perfected and I know full well my brothers will look like a cross between models from Calvin Klein and The Gap. Luke hesitantly sits up, with is totally different than his human behavior, and looks at both of us.

“So...?” he asks.

“So?” Ambrose says.

“So,” I say, smiling at him.

“It’s done?”

“Yes,” I tell him.

Luke turns and looks at Frankie. “Holy god! Is he dead?!” he shouts.

I shake my head. “No. He’s still changing.”

Luke shakes his head and reaches out to touch his brother. “Wake up, Frankie,” he says, shaking him. “I can’t do this without you... Wake the hell up!”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Ambrose tells him, not unkindly.

Luke locks eyes with mine. “Could I have powers?” he demands.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

Luke tries to get to his feet but ends up surging across the room, nearly plowing into the door frame.

“Yeah, you’ve gotta watch that,” Ambrose tells him.

Luke hesitates in the doorway for several minutes; he is the same height as he was as a human, although he stands straighter now, more confident. He watches his twin, seemingly willing for him to open his eyes. “Dammit, Frankie,” Luke says, narrowing his eyes, and suddenly, Frankie is blasted from his bed and onto the floor.

Frankie’s eyes, naturally, whip open and he pounces into a threatening position. “What the hell was that?!” he demands.

“I...” Luke looks at me, his eyes wide. “What did I just...?”

“Psychic blast—very nice,” Ambrose says approvingly. “Like an elephant or something equally huge or threatening...”

Luke advances upon Ambrose then and lifts him into the air. “I suddenly feel like I could throw you out the freaking window,” he says, triumphant, and lets out the sound that an elephant would emit from his trunk.

“Quiet!” Frankie orders. He is now in a fetal position and he is covering his ears, his face cast downward. “Jeez, I feel like I’m some old man in a nursing home,” he says, raising his face, and his face is completely wrinkled.

“Oh, my god!” I shout.

Luke drops Ambrose, who manages to flip himself over to stand next to me.

“Holy crap, bro! What did you do?!” Luke demands.

Immediately, Frankie’s face reverts to a perfected version—a vampire-like version—of himself. “No clue,” he replies. He touches his face. “Man, I felt like I had a leather face like some old, drug-addicted rocker.” His hair then grows out past his shoulders, and his skin takes on an overly-tanned look and he looks quite crusty. “Ow!” he screams. “My face! I want my face back!” he shouts, shutting his eyes, and he promptly turns back into his new vampire self.

I shake my head at them. “You guys are crazy,” I say, just as there is a knock from downstairs. I cross my fingers that it isn’t the coppers as I walk downstairs, down the hallway, and into the lobby. Opening the front door, I feel dread rush through me as I see Rebecca standing there. “What do you want?” I demand.

“Who’s there?” asks Ambrose from behind me, coming up behind me.

Rebecca smirks. “Trying to save a common one?” she asks.

“Ambrose, this is Rebecca,” I say, sighing.

Rebecca grins, looking Ambrose up and down. “Sarah’s little sister,” she says, putting out her hand. “If it weren’t for the creepy eyes... Still, you’re very attractive.”

Ambrose begrudgingly puts out his hand, snaking his arm around my waist, something that isn’t lost on Rebecca, who looks jealous. “Nice to meet you. Sarah’s told me all about you, as a matter of fact.”

Rebecca raises her perfectly arched eyebrows. “Has she?”

“Yes—like how you barged in and took her parent’s attention away,” he replies.

“Ambrose,” I say softly.

Rebecca smiles. “If you’re referring to my mother, then I may have barged in and taken something, yes.” She examines her nails briefly before looking up at me. “Listen, everyone’s at the airport.”

“Excuse me?” I ask.

She gives me a patronizing smile. “Aunt Alice saw what you were intending to do the boys—our brothers...”

Luke and Frankie charged downstairs then and got a good look at Rebecca.

“This her?!” they demand, glaring at her.

Rebecca chuckles. “How cute, they know who I am. We have the same father,” she says, waving at them.

“Home wrecker!” Luke shouts.

“Go back where you came from!” Frankie yells.

“Guys, a home wrecker is usually reserved for the girlfriend of a married man,” I say, to reprimand the boys.

“Anyhow, Aunt Alice is...” Rebecca tries again.

“_Don’t_ call her that!” Frankie cries.

“She’s not _really_ your aunt,” Luke tells her.

Rebecca rolls her eyes. “Carlisle bought a jet and they’re all waiting for us to get on it. I guess you’d be allowed to come, too,” she says to Ambrose. “Aunt Alice saw what you were going to do—well, I guess in this case did do—to the boys. I know that Mom and Dad are pretty upset with you guys...”

“Mom and Dad?!” I demand then, finally losing my temper.

“Yes. Mom and Dad,” Rebecca says, deliberately condescending. “They’re pretty angry at what you did...”

“No!”

I scream at her then, tired of listening to her. I couldn’t believe it—I was beginning immortality with a girl I knew I couldn’t stand, and she was _related _to me. To top it all off, she was Mom’s real daughter, so it’s not like Mom would even want me anymore now that her precious Rebecca was back in her life. I remembered the couple of foster homes I’d stayed in when I was young, and how nobody wanted to adopt me, but everyone seemed to wanted to adopt everyone else... Rejection. Rejection all over again.

“Calm down, Sarah. They’re my mom and dad, too...”

“They’re_ my_ mom and dad, dammit!” I screamed, and I dove on top of her then, wanting obliteration to suddenly be a power I possessed, because I never wanted to look at her perfect face again.


	4. The Definition of Right & Wrong

The moment I hit the ground, I wanted to fight back, but I knew that it would look bad if I suddenly started fighting my newfound sister. With all my strength, I managed to throw her off me, and into the arms of that precious—and gorgeous—new boyfriend of hers, who promptly caught her. I threw myself to my feet, narrowing my eyes at her, as Luke and Frankie looked shocked, their crimson eyes wide.

“Stop your childish attitude,” I manage to get out, narrowing my eyes at Sarah as she manages to get her bearings. “Mom and Dad are waiting with Aunt Alice and Carlisle at the jet and we have to be there in less than an hour.”

Sarah promptly crosses her arms. “You mean, the boys have to be there in less than an hour,” she replies hotly. “They’ve just been turned and they need a hunt. I won’t allow them on a plane without one.”

I run my hands through my hair, but agree. We get into my car and Sarah keys in the directions onto the GPS where the nearest forest is and we go. Once we arrive, we leave the main trail and go off the beaten track, where the sharp scent of deer soon fills our noses. I watch as Sarah shows the boys what to do; it takes three deer for Luke and four for Frankie before either of them are satisfied, and soon we return to the house for both boys to pack their things.

“Aren’t you going to pack?” I ask Sarah as we walk in.

Sarah scoffs. “I’m _not_ going back to that house. Boys,” she says, turning to look at them, “get packed, now. Ambrose, go help them.”

Reluctantly, the boys and Ambrose head back upstairs, so then it’s just me, staring at this mad little tyrant. She turns and goes into the house, motioning for me to follow her, and I do, shutting the front door behind me. Sarah walks into the living room, perching in an armchair by the fireplace while I perch on the edge of a couch opposite.

“I really don’t know what your problem is,” I say, running my hands through my jet-black hair and shaking my head.

“Really, Rebecca?” Sarah demands, sneering my name. “You don’t? Well, let me attempt to tell you.” She leans up against the back of the chair. “All Mom really wanted was her real daughter—you know it, and I know it. Now that I’m over twenty-one, and you’re only nineteen, she will feel like she doesn’t need me anymore.” She smirks, bitterly. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now, I guess. I’m always overlooked...”

“What are you talking about?” I demand. “You were adopted and you had a good life pretty early...”

“I was almost five,” Sarah says, like someone has wounded her. “I was shuffled around from foster home to foster home because nobody wanted to adopt me! I was a pretty ordinary-looking human, so this heightened perfection does not to my former appearance any sort of justice whatsoever. The company who seized me had a three strikes you’re out policy, so once three homes decided they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take me, I was put in a group home where all the ‘undesirables’ go to.”

“What did you do?” I find myself asking. “You can’t have been so innocent then. Look at you now. Was it bad behavior?”

“The first family had a developmentally disabled son,” Sarah tells me, “and they felt like they couldn’t handle him, plus their teenage daughters. The second house I went to was a crack den where they would use children for slave labor—I was too young, so they didn’t want me; thankfully, they later got arrested,” she puts in softly. “And the last home was this older couple who I guess couldn’t have kids or something, I don’t know,” she shrugs. “The guy who wanted to be my dad fell pretty bad—I don’t know the details—but he became paralyzed because of it. His wife had a heart condition or something and I guess they figured that a child would be too much excitement, so I was turned in back to the children’s services, where I stayed until Mom found me...” She shrugs, and I wonder just how terrible these homes were for her. “Fact is, you can’t just throw out the cancer card and expect automatic sympathy—but that’s exactly what happened with my family. The moment you walk in, I’m automatically replaced... I’ll bet they’ve given you my bedroom in my absence, haven’t they?”

“No,” I reply, wondering what possessed her to think that. “Esme’s been adding additions to the house for years, you know that. I got a bedroom in that new wing. Rosalie and Esme are fixing it up while I’m gone... I expect your boyfriend’ll need a room, too...”

“Ambrose and I... I couldn’t tell you what you are. The guy’s almost four hundred years old; I guess things were different back then...”

I find myself raising an eyebrow. “So...sex _is_ off the table then?”

“Hey!” Sarah shouts, swiping my arm. “Not funny!” she says, laughing, and I join in her laugher, and a chorus of bells fills the room. “Not funny...”

“I never had siblings,” I say after a moment. “My parents tried for over ten years to have kids but nothing took. In the beginning, she couldn’t even get pregnant—my mom. And then, when she did get pregnant, she kept losing the babies months before the due date. And then when fertility treatments didn’t help, they looked into adoption. And that’s how they found Mom.”

Sarah gets to her feet and slowly crosses to me, perching next to me on the couch. Silently, she reaches out and touches my arm, and her eyes widen. “Such a lonely time,” she whispers then, and I can see she is assessing my memories. “You were a solitary child who liked reading as many things as you could get your hands on... After the diagnosis, you were put on chemo for years until high school, when you were put on experimental treatment. Your remission began shortly thereafter, and kept up for four years until your freshman year of college... You were engaged?” she asks. “I don’t like him,” she says immediately. “Whitney Channing—what a bitch!” Shaking her head, she whispers, “Living a Bohemian lifestyle before your transformation, whereupon you decided to find Mom but returned to Stanford where you...” Her eyes widen. “You killed them?”

I whip my arm away. “Yeah. So?”

Sarah shakes her head. “Nothing. I probably would’ve done the same thing.”

“You’ve never...?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Never had a reason to. Not yet, anyway.”

I share her wry smile. “So, you have college degrees?” I ask her.

She nods. “Yeah—a major in criminal law and a minor in English history.”

“That’s probably why you came here, huh? Because you studied English history?” At her nod, I asked, “Learn anything new?”

She shakes her head. “I mainly left the house to hunt and to go clothes shopping for everyone else. Ambrose was a nomad who drank human blood but I’m slowly introducing him to the vegetarian lifestyle.” She looks proud of herself, but not boastful about it. “I do like him, but we... We haven’t...”

I raise my eyebrows. “I see. Did you...as a human...?”

Sarah sighs. “Yeah, a couple of times in college. I had one serious boyfriend in high school but we never had sex, not even on prom night, even though he wanted to. College was the first time—I was almost nineteen. He was a frat boy—his name was Scott—and I’d been dating for a few weeks. We went out for probably...ooh, a year and eight months or something. Never met the family though or anything like that—his family was filthy rich and always took him on vacation during school breaks.”

“You meet them?”

“Well he had an older brother who was a senior when we were freshman, so I met him—he was called Todd. And then there was his younger sister, Jennifer, who was a freshman when we were juniors. Their mom was dead but their dad was Victor—nice enough; he was a stock broker who worked for Wall Street. He had a wife named Pamela who was nice, I guess—they’d had triplets that were in middle school named Bridget, Ruben, and Matthias who were all right...” She shrugs. “I don’t know if I loved him; when he asked me out, my roommate—a high school classmate that was in the passenger seat of the car that I was in during the final night of my human life—told me to date him because she was dating his best friend, Brad. That’s probably one of the most horrible things about all this—the accident, their deaths, my immortality...” she says quietly.

“What is?” I ask.

She turns to me. “Jackie, my roommate, and Brad got engaged junior year. They were married just a few weeks before we graduated. They had a baby the Christmas before we graduated—Cassandra...”

“Do you know what happened?”

“Yeah, I think Brad managed to get a job that applied to his degree,” she replies. “He got an executive job at this company his dad owns—I don’t know much about it. His mom looks after Cassandra in the mornings and afternoons...”

“Wow,” I say softly, “you actually have feelings...”

Sarah looks up at me, a bit mischievous. “You doubted me, little sister?” she demands then, and pushes me over, and lies on top of me. “Do you give?” she asks.

I laugh then, and our laughs mingle so much that the bells match pitch. “Okay, okay! Yes! I give, I give, I give...”

She sighs and flops back to her original seated position. “Here they come,” she says as the boys and Ambrose come downstairs.

“Do we not hate her anymore?” Frankie asks.

“Yeah, I need to know where to hate,” Luke puts in.

Sarah puts her arms around them, which is comical due to the massive height difference between them. “Rebecca and I reached...an understanding.”

“Yes,” I say quickly. “Nice to see you guys.”

They sigh, visibly hurt that they couldn’t battle.

Sarah runs upstairs to pack her bags and doesn’t take nearly as long as our brothers and Ambrose did a few minutes ago. When we make our way outside and Sarah motions to the rental car that she’ll have to return. She and Ambrose pile in and the boys go with them, which I can understand. I follow them to the airport and we return our cars together before I lead them to the airplane hangar where everyone is waiting.

Our parents pile out of the plane immediately, followed by Carlisle and Alice, with Jasper peeking out of the plane doors and Edward just next to him, with Bella standing next to our mother. Turning, I see suspicion briefly in our mother’s eyes before I look at Ambrose and the boys, who are all sporting sunglasses which, due to the summer sun, don’t raise any red flags. Carlisle sees the new addition promptly and immediately goes up to him.

“Carlisle Cullen,” he says, putting out his hand in a prompt yet friendly manner. “I see you’ve met my grandchildren.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Ambrose replies quickly, shaking Carlisle’s hand. “Or do you prefer Dr. Cullen? I’m sorry—I’m kind of out of my element here...”

Carlisle smiles as Ambrose’s open, honest behavior. “Carlisle is fine,” he assures him. “I’ve been told you’re called Ambrose.”

Ambrose nods, not questioning how Carlisle knew his name. “Yes, that’s right. Good to meet you, Carlisle.”

Carlisle then pats Ambrose on the shoulder before walking up to Sarah. He stares at her with a firm yet loving severity of any grandfather or coven leader would before putting an arm on her shoulder. “Sarah, I’m sure you meant well, but you changing Luke and Frankie was very irresponsible.”

“I asked them,” she said promptly. “They said yes.”

Carlisle sighs. “I’m sure they said yes, Sarah, especially after you informed them of the potential forthcoming implications if they did not.”

“No, Carlisle, you don’t get it,” Sarah said. “I can _persuade _people.”

“That’s kind of how she saved me,” Ambrose said, moving to stand beside Sarah, something which was not missed on our parents. “The people I was going to hunt screamed and so Sarah came up—leapt up, actually—and told them to go back to their car and to forget the whole thing. Their eyes glazed over and they went pale, and then they took off in the manner she told them to do so.”

“Persuasion?” Jasper asks, stepping forward. He regards Bella and our mother for a moment and shakes his head. “Your shields may be too strong for it to work... Alice.”

Alice steps down the plane stairs and steps forward. “Okay,” she says.

Sarah steps forward and stares deeply into Alice’s golden eyes. “You will take off your purple jacket immediately as if you never liked the style, and then you will crumple it off and throw it in Jasper’s face.”

Immediately, Alice’s body grows rigid and her eyes glaze over, almost as if she is some sort of zombie. She rips off her jacket as if it is covered in fire and promptly throws it in Jasper’s face, turning back to Sarah, as if she’s waiting for a further command.

“Be yourself!” Sarah says, obviously scared.

Alice’s form becomes fluid again and her eyes take on their shining kindness. Turning, she regards her husband with confusion. “Jasper, why do you have my jacket?” she asks, and I watch as Edward’s eyes widen.

“She’s really confused,” he reports.

“Fascinating,” Jasper observes.

“So, she really did ask them,” Carlisle says.

“How can we be sure?” Mom demands, speaking for the first time. “How do we know she didn’t convince them?!”

“Mom,” Sarah says, her voice broken. “I can’t believe you would even think that I would do something so heinous.”

Mom shakes her head and turns on her heel, heading into the plane without a word.

I can almost feel Sarah’s pain, and I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Despite my two and a half inches on her, it is almost as if I’m the older sister taking the protective role, expressly when she promptly turns around and throws herself into my arms, the tearless sobs wracking her body. I am just able to hold her for long enough before I allow Ambrose to take over, before we all board the plane back for Forks.

. . .

I deliberately put some distance between myself and my newfound family in the hopes that Mom will reach out to Sarah. However, after spending half the flight with Luke and Frankie, she moves to go sit solo with Richard. Shaking my head, I peer over at Edward and Bella, just staring out the window silently; then, I look over at Alice and Jasper, who are merely sitting together. Carlisle is looking over what appears to be a medical textbook and Sarah and Ambrose haven’t left each other’s side.

After I’d showed the family my abilities after Sarah had run off in a huff back at the Cullen house, Esme had decided to give me a tour of the house. When I noticed Sarah sneaking out one of the back doors with a suitcase, I’d deliberately distracted Esme with a question about their graduation hat display. Esme explained as Sarah snuck out that they kept their graduation hats whenever they’d graduated from various high school, colleges, and universities over the centuries, as a private joke between them all. I found the whole thing very funny, although I was distracted by the conversation I saw Sarah, Luke, and Frankie having before they all piled into the car that the boys shared and drove off, unseen, down the driveway and out of sight.

“Sweetheart?”

Turning, I make eye contact with my mother, who looks altogether pleased at me—me, the child she’d lost and who’d ratted out her other children. “Hey, Mom,” I say, leaning back in the airplane seat, an automatic gesture. “What’s up? Dad around?” I ask, peering around her and spotting Dad with the boys.

She waved it away. “He’ll be along, I should think, shortly. How about you?” she asked, gently patting my leg. “Settling in with all of us all right?”

I fix her with a look. “You know what, Mom?”

“What?”

“I dreamed about you—back when I could dream—about meeting my biological mother, once I figured out this whole adoption thing. I have to say, and I’m sorry to say it, that I’m disappointed in you.” I don’t allow her to interrupt me. “No, let me say this. Your rejection of Sarah and favoritism you’re showing me has got to stop. I know you felt like you lost me, but do you know to what extent Sarah spent her early years? She was neglected, Mom, while I had a loving family from day one—well, mostly, anyway. Can you honestly tell me that you knew about her three foster homes before being put in the group home?”

She shakes her head. “No, I didn’t know...”

“Well, you’ve really hurt her,” I say, finding myself identifying with my older sister. “I know that my own mother wouldn’t reject her other daughter, just because she welcomed me with open arms.”

My mother looks shocked and immediately gets to her feet. I watch as she asks Sarah to excuse herself from Ambrose’s side and they walk off into a secluded corner of the plane together, while Dad goes up to Ambrose and speaks to him. _Scoping out the boyfriend_, I think to myself, _nice_.

“Love will find you, too, you know,” Edward says, moving to sit across from me with a rather knowing smile upon his lips. “Are you actively waiting around for it? Because it won’t happen if you do that.”

“Ignore my husband’s words of cynicism,” Bella says, sitting beside him. “While he and I weren’t looking for it, Alice ended up doing so and look what happened—married to Jasper for almost eighty years.”

“And you wouldn’t think it by looking at them,” Edward joked, “physically, anyway. Their minds are molded to one another—the sooner you get used to us, the more you’ll see how we vampire couples tick.”

I shrug. “I’ve kind of soured on the whole idea of love, to tell you the truth,” I reply. “My only boyfriend, when I was human, he cheated on me...”

“So, you killed him,” Edward says, and Bella immediately looks at me.

“Killed him?” she asks. “Really?”

I nod, not remorseful at all. “Yes. And the girl he cheated on me with. But I didn’t drink their blood, and she made my life a living hell throughout high school.”

“Name calling,” Edward says softly to Bella.

“Maybe we should hear it from her,” Bella put in.

I shrug. “Edward told it fine,” I reply, not really interested in telling my aunt and uncle about my murderous exploits. The two of them seem to get the message and I turn and look out the window, watching the numerous cities and towns passing by as we leave that continent and move onto the next.

. . .

We arrive back to the airport in Seattle in good time and manage to make our way quickly through the airport, collecting everyone else’s baggage as we go. Edward and Bella go with Sarah and Ambrose in Carlisle’s car, while I, the boys, and my parents get into my father’s car and follow them along the freeway. My mother promised me that she would take me to Port Angeles soon to buy me own car, but I’d decided not to hold my breath. She still had some things to work out with Sarah, and that took precedence over my desire for a hot and sleek new ride.

We arrive back at the house about an hour later and I immediately want to get inside and take a shower. Just as we pull up, I get the immediate whiff of wet dog smell and meet my mother’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. I am sitting in the middle, not minding that the boys get the window seats, especially now that they’re reacting to their first hit of werewolf scent ever. We get out of the car and immediately I sense tension in the air as Sarah motions for Ambrose to stand back. Surprisingly, she walks over to me and drags me with her, and we two make our way towards said awful smell.

“Sarah, what are you...?!” I demand.

“Shush,” Sarah hisses as we approach the line of trees as everyone else heads inside the house, even the boys and Ambrose. “Quiet.”

Perplexed, I follow her behind the line of trees and into the woods a little, just before the stream leading to Edward and Bella’s cabin. “Sarah, what—”

“I said, ‘quiet!’” she says again, growing annoyed as we step closer. “I know you’re there, Embry!” she calls out, dropping my hand. “Come out!”

Then, it happens—a handsome guy walks out from behind one of the thickest, tallest trees these woods offer, and I find my eyes widening like a teenage fangirl. I immediately shut my mouth to stop my gawking—something my adoptive mother never approved of—and hesitate, waiting for the boy to approach. He does, and I can see that he looks like he’s a hot model in his twenties.

“Embry,” Sarah says curtly, “what do you want?”

He sighs, running a hand through his closely cropped, dark hair. “I had to see you,” he says, and my stomach drops—he is in love with my sister. I wondered then if vampires—or werewolves—could _smell_ disappointment... “You taking off like that, it scared the hell out of me! You know how I feel about you...”

“Stop right there,” Sarah says, immediately holding up her hand, “or I’ll blast you again. I would have thought you’d have been warned from last time.”

“Sarah, don’t be like that,” Embry says, urgency at the back of his tone. “Please. Just hear me out, that’s all I want.”

“I’ve _been_ hearing you out,” Sarah says, her arms crossed. “I’ve been hearing you out ever since my mom and dad’s wedding, when you supposedly imprinted on me. I was barely five-years-old—I didn’t have a choice! It was made for me...”

“At Mom’s and Dad’s...?” I whisper.

“Not now,” Sarah says to me.

“But what’s imprinting...?”

“Not _now_, Rebecca,” Sarah says, turning back to Embry. “God, I would think that the only way for you to snap out of it would be to...”

“What?” Embry asks.

“Kiss someone else?” Sarah asks stupidly. “I don’t know...”

My heart did a somersault—all that it was good for now, anyway. I open my mouth to speak and, thankfully, I’m not interrupted. “I could possibly kiss you,” I say, feeling like the nerdy best friend of the queen bee.

Embry turns to look at me for the first time. “You’d do that?”

I nod. “Of course,” I reply, “anything for a friend of the family.”

I step forward then—Embry is nearly a foot taller than me at six-feet-four—and soon I am face to face with him. I just manage to stand on my toes, wrapping my arms around Embry’s neck and he mercifully leans down for our lips to meet. His lips are the color of sun kissed caramel chocolate, and I find my toes wriggling in my expensive shoes—courtesy of Alice—as our lips meet. I didn’t know when or where to stop, but the moment his tongue entered my mouth and I began to pull at his hair, I knew it was the time. Reluctantly, I pull away from him, and his bittersweet chocolate eyes look disappointed, but I know full well that I probably should get out of there.

“Well, that certainly was...” He begins, obviously dumbstruck.

I shake my head at him. “Don’t,” I reply. “Don’t say anything,” I say as I run away from him and bolt past Sarah. I make it up the back staircase of the house into the kitchen, and, from there, up the back staircase to the second floor of the house, to the new wing that Esme had installed for me. Slamming the door and locking it behind me, in the interim I found myself hyperventilating drastically and wondered if this was common behavior by vampires of any kind.

I lean up against the door to my bedroom and begin inwardly cursing at myself. _Why_, was the first thought that came to mind, _could you not have fallen for some appropriate, good-looking, vampire guy_? _Why did it have to be a goddamn werewolf, who you’ve been staring at ever since Sarah took off and who you now had a face to put to the name_? I mean, please, had I known that Embry—who had been watching the house with a combination of curiosity, anger, and mortification for the last few days since Sarah’s absence—had been the one who had imprinted on her, I would never have...

“Dammit,” I said to myself—one question was still unanswered. Promptly, I moved away from the door. “Edward,” I merely stated.

Immediately, a set of feet on the stairs occurred and Edward stepped into my bedroom, a smile on his face. “What is it?” he asked.

“Imprinting,” I replied, feeling no need to question him further.

“Oh, that,” Edward said. “Imprinting... You know when Sarah and the boys took off and mine and Bella’s daughter, Renesmee, came here with her husband, Jacob?”

“Yes,” I tell him.

“Well, remember how we explained werewolves to you?”

I nod. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, werewolves, when they see the person that they’re destined to spend the rest of their lives with, something powerful overtakes them. If the person is a child or a baby—or in Renesmee’s case, a newborn—during the imprinting, all the imprinter wants is for the imprintee to be safe and happy. By the time the imprintee is a teenager, however...feelings happen, as feelings should, and that’s when Jacob and Renesmee became an official couple; they got engaged when she was right out of high school, but we insisted that she finish college before they have kids.”

“One more year?” I ask him.

“Approximately,” Edward replies. “Took her long enough to decide on her major, but Bella and I felt that landscape design is a good one for her.”

“So, Embry really imprinted on Sarah on our parents wedding day?”

“Yes; he’d formally been infatuated with your mother—just as Jacob was with Bella, but that’s another story. Anyhow, Sarah and Embry dated until she went off to college and then she broke up with him; I’m sure she told you that she dated in college...”

I nod. “She mentioned it.”

“Right; well, on the day she came back—I take it you know about the car accident?” At my nod, he continues, “Well, Embry was unhappy because Sarah had come home and hadn’t bothered to see him—poor kid couldn’t take the hint that they were really over. He was furious that she’d been turned and suspected that their relationship would begin again, now that she was home, but she shot him down.”

I shake my head. “Oh, dear...” I say, feeling like an idiot. “So, he’s definitely _not_ the kind of person I should bother getting mixed up with, is he?” I ask.

Edward smiles. “Can’t say,” he replies. “He’s not exactly my type, of course.”

I nod, “Of course,” I say.

“Ultimately, you have to make your own choices. Of course, you have two years on me for human experience...”

“And you have over a hundred years of vampire experience on me,” I say.

Edward smiles, putting a hand on my shoulder. “You make up your mind,” he tells me, and walks over to my bedroom door. “After all, you’ve got forever.” He shuts the door behind him and I listen briefly to him going downstairs and meeting with Bella upon the landing and how in love they still sound.

I cross the room, peering out the window, where I see Sarah just entering the house from below, and wonder what her conversation with Embry entailed. Wandering to my bed, I lie down upon it, my arms over my chest, and stare up at the ceiling. As I continue lying there, I attempt not to recall Embry’s face just inside the woods, and how he was not staring at Sarah, but staring at me.

. . .

I take a shower later that afternoon in the en suite bathroom that Esme has made especially for me—it has a tiled floor, a circular bathtub by the window, a separate shower stall, a counter with two sinks and a generous mirror, as well as a linen cupboard along the back wall, full of towels. I step into the massive shower—both it and the bathtub are big enough for two—and feel the knots leaving my shoulders. I began to consider Embry as the water washed over me, and wondered again if Sarah had managed to use her persuasion to keep him loving her, though she never seemed to love him herself.

Stepping out of the shower, I wrap a towel around me and dry off, using my hair drying to complete the process. I pull on a pair of leggings, a sweater dress, and some boots, leaving my hair down, as I go downstairs and into the living room. I find my parents there, in a whispered conversation with Carlisle, Edward, and Bella, and they all turn from the moment I enter the room. They all five plaster smiles upon their faces from the moment they look at me, and I know immediately that they are hiding something from me, and the guilty look in Edward’s eyes confirms that.

“You can tell them I don’t care,” I report to Edward in a sing-song voice. “I’m going out for a hunt, if that’s all right.”

“Of course, sweetheart,” my mother says quickly. “Your father and I will take you to Port Angeles in the morning for a car, all right?”

“No rush—but thanks,” I reply with a smile. I slip out the back kitchen door and make my way down to the edge of the woods, pausing briefly to consider the very spot in which Embry and I kissed. Shaking the thought from my mind, I dash into the thicket of trees and make my way deeper and deeper into the woods.

I climb up a tree without thinking about it, smelling bears one way and a bunch of elk another and, just to the north, a herd of deer. But none of these is what I want and, finally, in the direction of the mountains, I smell the one thing I want—a giant cat that has slowly become a favorite of my new family. I sense then that I am experiencing a rush of delight as I throw myself down from the tree and dash along the man-made trail before me. Dashing as fast as I can, I speed past trees and smaller creatures all around me, ignoring them all, because all I want is that mountain lion.

And then it is before me, and I launch myself into the air, and—as I become airborne—the creature growls, lifting a paw to stop me. I just manage to dodge it in just the nick of time as I hurl myself towards it, wrapping my arms around its neck as it roars with rage. Opening my mouth, I make quick work of slicing its throat, the warm substance known as blood entering my throat and quickly going down it. With a certain amount of satisfaction, I throw it away from me, thankful that I hadn’t ruined this lovely sweater dress that Alice had bought for me by a company called Warm Cider.

I venture deeper into the woods, finding the cliff that my mother had told me held very deep and profound meaning for her. As I climbed up the side of the mountain, I leaned up against the rockery on the back of the cliff, mulling over the story she’d given me. Upon my arrival, my mother had wanted me to feel as welcome with the family as possible; in so doing, she’d given me her entire life story—well, the SparkNotes version of it, anyway—for me to get to know her better.

“There we were,” I remembered her saying. “There was this guy in high school with us named Theodore Monroe. This was back when Cousin Alex was still living with us before he and his wife, Katherine—your father’s cousin—moved to Denali. At first, it seemed as if Alex and I were going to be together, but then he met Katherine and I met your father, and I have no regrets...”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, Theodore was gay, but he feared what his family would do or say if they ever found out. Theodore and I met at this party hosted by the most popular girl in school. She was flirting with Cousin Alex and they kissed, so I was jealous. When I was certain Alex was looking, I kissed Theodore. Soon, he told me that he was gay but he was hiding it, so he asked me to pretend to be his girlfriend. At this point, your father was in the picture, and when the most popular girl spotted him, she turned her sights on him instead because Alex was so committed to Katherine already. Anyhow, your father thought that even though he and I had a connection, I was simply giving Theodore a chance because he and I had met first. He didn’t like that very much, because we’d confirmed we had feelings for each other, and he seemed to think Theodore and I were dating. Well, after I finally told your father the truth—and swore him to secrecy—he asked me to be his. I said ‘yes’, of course, and then it was also up here that he proposed.”

“And you said, ‘Yes, of course’?” I ask her.

My mother laughs. “Well, in not so many words, yes.”

“Did you love him? My father?”

“Richard? Of course, very much.” She put her arm around me. “Maybe someday if you get married, you’ll be able to honeymoon on Isle Esme like we did.”

“And Edward and Bella,” I say.

“And Edward and Bella,” she replies.

“I do have one question,” I’d asked her.

“Ask it.”

I looked down at her, due to our difference in height, which was such a peculiar feeling for me, even though she was my mother. “Did you hold me?”

“When you were born?”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “Yes, honey, I held you. And you know what? I thought you were the most beautiful baby in the world. But I was a freshman in high school when you were born. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have...”

I nod. “I know. I understand.”

She took my hand. “Besides, the only other alternative was to give you to my... To Rosemary and Andy to raise, and I couldn’t stand the thought of them doing to me what they did to another little girl. Not to you...”

I shake my head then. “I can’t believe you made yourself a sacrificial lamb just for me. You know I was just a baby. What if I’d grown up hating you?”

She sighed. “With Rosemary’s and Andy’s influence, you could have,” she replied, and I noted the bitterness in her voice.

I wrapped my arms around myself, staring at this beautiful world that was now my home. I had been adopted at birth by a family who was supposed to love me, but quickly grew tired of me when I ‘broke’, just as children do with their toys. I found I did not miss them, now that immortality had happened to me, and all I wanted, all I needed, was the love and support of my family—my new family.

Then my thoughts drifted to Embry’s soft lips on mine, and I soon found that that was something that would not come out of my mind so easily. I wondered, inwardly, if this was a test that couples were often put though—with an element of a Shakespeare tragedy. I mean—assuming there was something felt on his end—could it be possibly that Embry and I were the next Romeo and Juliet?


End file.
